Poems
of
John Greenleaf Whittier
With Biographical Sketch
BY
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1893 and 1902,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
CONTENTS.
MoGG Megone, 1835
Page
I
The Bridal of Pennacook,
1848 20
Legendary, 1846: —
The Merrimack 34
The Norsemen 35
Cassandra Southwick • • • 37
Funeral Tree of the Sokokis 41
St. John 42
Pentucket 44
The FamiHst's Hymn ... 45
The Fountain 46
The Exiles 47
The New Wife and the
Old 51
Voices of Freedom, from i
833
TO 1848: —
Toussaint L'Ouverture . . 53
The Slave-ships . .
56
Stanzas ....
57
The Yankee Girl .
59
To W. L. G. . . .
60
Song of the Free .
61
The Hunters of Men
61
Clerical Oppressors
63
The Christian Slave
64
Stanzas for the Times
65
Lines on the Anti-slavery
Message of Governor
Ritner, 1836 66
The Pastoral Letter ... 68
Lines for Anti-slavery Meet-
ing, 1834 69
Lines for Third Anniversary
of British Emancipation,
1S37 70
Lines on British Emancipa-
tion, 1846 71
The Farewell of a Virginia
Slave Mother 72
The Moral Warfare - • - 72>
The World's Convention of
the Friends of Emancipa-
tion, 1840 J2>
New Hampshire .... 76
The New Year yj
Massachusetts to Virginia . 79
The Relic 82
The Branded Hand ... 83
Texas 84
To Faneuil Hall .... 86
To Massachusetts .... 86
The Pine-tree 87
Lines on a Visit to Washing-
ton, 1845 88
Lines to a Young Clerical
Friend 90
CONTENTS.
Page
Yorktown 90
Lines written in a Friend^s
Book 92
Paean 94
To the Memory of Thomas
Shipley 95
To a Southern Statesman . 96
Lines on Pinckney^s Reso-
lutions and Calhoun's
Bill 97
The Curse of the Charter-
breakers 98
The Slaves of Martinique . 99
The Crisis 102
Miscella7ieoiis.
The Knight of St. John . 104
The Holy Land .... 105
Palestine 105
Ezekiel, chapter xxxiii.
30-33 107
The Wife of Manoah to her
Husband 108
The Cities of the Plain . . no
The Crucifixion . . . . in
The Star of Bethlehem . . in
Hymns from the French of
Lamartine 113
The Female Martyr . . . 115
The Frost Spirit . . . . 116
The Vaudois Teacher . . 117
The Call of the Christian . 118
My Soul and I 118
To a Friend 121
The Angel of Patience . . 122
Follen 123
To the Reformers of Eng-
land 124
The Quaker of the Olden
Time 125
The Reformer 126
The Prisoner for Debt . .
Lines on Clergymen's Views
of the Gallows . .
The Human Sacrifice
Randolph of Roanoke
Democracy ....
To Ronge ....
ChalkleyHall . . .
To J. P
The Cypress-tree of Cey
A Dream of Summer
To
Ion
Songs of Labor, and Other
Poems, 1850: —
Dedication . . .
The Ship-builders
The Shoemakers
The Drovers .
The Fishermen
The Huskers .
The Corn-song
The Lumbermen
Miscellaneous.
The Angels of Buena Vista,
Forgiveness
Barclay of Ury
What the Voice said . .
To Delaware
Worship
The Demon of the Study .
The Pumpkin
Extract from '^ A New Eng-
land Legend ^^ . . . .
Hampton Beach ....
Lines on the Death of Silas
Wright
Lines accompanying Manu-
scripts
Page
127
128
130
133
134
135
136
138
139
139
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
149
149
153
153
156
156
158
160
161
162
164
CONTENTS.
The Reward 165
Raphael 165
Lucy Hooper 167
Channing 168
To the Memory of Charles
B. Storrs 169
Lines on the Death of S. O.
Torrey 170
A Lament 171
Daniel Wheeler .... 172
Daniel Neall 174
To my Friend on the Death
of his Sister 175
Gone 175
The Lake-side 176
The Hill-top 177
On receiving an Eagle's
Quill from Lake Superior, 178
Memories 179
The Legend of St. Mark . 180
The Well of Loch Maree . 181
To my Sister 182
Autumn Thoughts . . . 182
Calef in Boston .... 183
To Pius IX 183
Elliott 184
Ichabod! 185
The Christian Tourists . . 186
The Men of Old .... 187
The Peace Convention at
Brussels 188
The Wish of To-day . . 190
Our State 190
AlPsWell 191
Seed-timQ and Harvest . . 191
To A. K 191
The Chapel of the Hermits, and
Other Poems, 1852 : —
The Chapel of the Hermits, 193
Page
Miscellaneoiis.
Questions of Life . . . . 199
The Prisoners of Naples . 201
Moloch in State Street . . 202
The Peace of Europe . . 203
Wordsworth 204
To , after a Day's Ex-
cursion 204
In Peace 205
Bcnedicite 206
Pictures 206
Derne 207
Astraea 209
Invocation 209
The Cross 210
Eva 210
To Fredrika Bremer . . . 211
April 211
Stanzas for the Times, 1850 212
A Sabbath Scene . . . . 213
Remembrance 214
The Poor Voter on Election
Day 215
Trust 215
Kathleen 215
First-day Thoughts . . . 217
Kossuth 218
To my Old Schoolmaster . 218
The Panorama, and Other
Poems, 1856: —
The Panorama 221
Miscellaneous.
Summer by the Lakeside . 231
The Hermit of the Thcbaid, 233
Burns 235
William Fprster .... 236
Rantoul 237
The Dream of Pio Nono . 239
Tauler 240
CONTENTS.
Lines suggested by reading
a State Paper ....
The Voices
The Hero
My Dream
The Barefoot Boy . . .
Flowers in Winter . . .
The Rendition
Lines — the Fugitive Slave
Act
The Fruit-gift
A Memory
To C. S
The Kansas Emigrants . .
Song of Slaves in the
Desert
Lines to Friends arrested
by Slave Power . . .
The New Exodus ....
The Haschish
Ballads : —
Page
242
242
244
245
246
247
248
249
249
250
251
251
252
254
Mary Garvin 255
Maud Muller 258
The Ranger 260
Later Poems, 1856-1857: —
The Last Walk in Autumn
The Mayflowers . . .
Burial of Barbour. . .
To Pennsylvania . . .
The Pass of the Sierra .
The Conquest of Finland
A Lay of Old Time . .
What of the Day? . .
The First Flowers . .
My Namesake ....
Home Ballads, i860: —
The Witch's Daughter
262
266
267
268
268
269
270
270
271
272
275
Page
The Garrison of Cape Ann 279
The Prophecy of Samuel
Sewall 281
Skipper Ireson's Ride . . 284
Telling the Bees .... 285
The Sycamores .... 286
The Double-headed Snake
of Newbury 288
The Swan Song of Parson
Avery 290
The Truce of Piscataqua . 291
My Playmate 294
Poems and Lyrics : —
The Shadow and the Light 295
The Gift of Tritemius . . 297
The Eve of Election . . . 298
The Over-heart . . . . 299
In Remembrance of Joseph
Sturge 300
Trinitas 302
The Old Burying-ground . 303
The Pipes at Lucknow . . 304
My Psalm 305
Le Marais du Cygne . . 306
" The Rock" in El Ghor . 307
On a Prayer-book . . . 308
To J. T. F 310
The Palm-tree . . , . . 310
Lines for the Burns Celebra-
tion, 1859 311
The Red River Voyageur . 312
Kenoza Lake 312
ToG. B. C 313
The Sisters ... . . 314
Lines for Agricultural Ex-
hibition 314
The Preacher 315
The Quaker Alumni . . . 321
Brown of Ossawatomie . . 325
CONTENTS.
Page
From Perugia 326
For an Autumn Festival . 327
Early and Uncollected Poems : —
The Exile's Departure . . 329
The Deity 329
To the " Rustic Bard" . . 330
The Album 331
Mount Agiochook . . . 332
Metacom 333
The Fratricide. .
Eternity ....
Isabella of Austria
Stanzas ....
The Missionary .
Massachusetts . .
Address on Opening
Pennsylvania Hall, 1838 346
The Response 349
Stanzas for the Times, 1844 35 1
of
Page
335
337
338
340
341
345
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
Circumstances determine the poet ; inheritance determines who the poet shall
be. It somehow seems to be a marvellous thing that a thrifty, plain Quaker stock
should come to such a flowering as was seen in John Greenleaf Whittier. That iri-
descent colors should play over the Quaker drab ! That from the insignificant chrys-
alis should emerge the brilliant butterfly ! From Keltic origin one might expect any
surprises. Boyle O'Reilly, who had also something of the prophetic spirit, who also
threw himself generously into conflict with powers that did their best to crush him
and make a martyr of him, is explained by the fact that he was Keltic. But one
scarcely expects a singer from the ranks of sober Friends. That is an anomaly; and
to explain the phenomenon one must look into Whittier's ancestry.
Four steps bring us back to the days of the Puritans. Whittier's father, John,
born in 1760, was the tenth child of Joseph, born in 1 716, the ninth and youngest son
of Joseph, born in 1669, who was in turn the tenth and youngest child of Thomas,
who was born in Southampton, England, in 1620, and sailed for America in the good
ship "Confidence" a little more than two and a half centuries ago. Thomas Whittier
was no common man. He settled on the Merrimack River, first in Salisbury, then in
old Newbury, then in Haverhill, where he built the house in which his famous de-
scendant was born. He is said to have brought the first hive of bees to Haverhill.
In those days Indians frequently scalped and murdered defenceless families of white
settlers; but Thomas Whittier made them his friends and disdained to protect his
house with flint-lock or stockade.
Thomas Whittier's son, Joseph, married the daughter of the Quaker, Joseph
Peasley, and thus the strain which in those days was regarded as a disgrace, but
which in time became a mark of distinction, was grafted upon the Whittier stock.
The poet's grandfather married Sarah Greenleaf, a descendant of a French exile,
whose name, instead of being perverted like the LuDiniydeivs (L'Hommedieux) and
the Desizzles (Des Isles), was simply translated into English. What part this Gallic
blood played in Whittier's mental make-up, it would be no less difficult than interest-
ing to determine.
Whittier's mother, Abagail Ilussey, was descended from the Rev. Stephen Bach-
elor or Batchelder of Hampton, N.H., a man who was famed for his "splendid eye."
This feature, which is generally associated with genius, seemed to have been inherited
by Whittier, and Daniel Webster, and William Pitt Fessenden, and Caleb Gushing.
ix
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Dark, expressive, penetrating eyes, full of soul and flashing with sudden lightning
glances, were characteristic of the " Batchelder eye," common to so many families in
New Hampshire.
Whittier's father married at the age of forty-four and had only four children,
Mary, John Greenleaf, who was born September 17, 1807, Matthew FrankUn, and
Elizabeth Hussey.
The old Whittier farmhouse, with its huge central chimney, faces the south; the
front lower rooms are square, with fifteen-inch oaken beams supporting the low ceilings.
The poet was born in the west front room, the two small-paned windows of which
look down to a little brook, which in those early days, says Whittier, " foamed,
rippled, and laughed " behind its natural fringe of bushes. Across the way was the
big unpainted barn. The scenery was the typical landscape of New England — a
smooth, grassy knoll (known as Job's Hill), woodland composed of oaks, walnuts,
pines, firs, and spruces, with sumachs, which in the autumn, and in the spring as well,
are gorgeous with many colors. Whittier, however, was color-blind, and all that
splendid display counted as naught to him.
Behind the house was the orchard, and behind the orchard a clump of oaks, near
which the Whittier graveyard used to be.
In 1798 the farm was rated as worth ^200. The year before the poet was born
his father bought one of three shares in it for $600 of borrowed money, and the debt
was not cleared for a quarter of a century. Money was scarce in those days. And
yet John Whittier was honored by his townspeople, was frequently in the public
service, and entertained men of note at his humble fireside.
When Whittier was seven years old, he went to school. His first teacher, who
was his lifelong friend, was Joshua Coffin of old Newbury.
Still sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry vines are running.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial.
The charcoal frescos on its wall;
The door's worn sill betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing.
It stood about half a mile from Whittier's home, but the fount of knowledge flowed
during only about three months in the year.
At home the library was scanty. Only twenty books or so, mostly journals and
memoirs of pious Quakers, furnished the boy home reading. He would walk miles
BIOGRAnilCAL SKETCH.
to borrow a volume of biography or travel. Naturally, the precepts of the Bible,
which was daily read, became a part of his mental and moral fibre. His poems are
full of references to Bible events and characters. " In my boyhood," he says, " in
our lonely farmhouse, we had scanty sources of information, few books, and only
a small weekly newspaper. Our only annual was the Almanac. Under such circum-
stances story-telling was a necessary resource in the long winter evenings."
When Nature sets about to make a poet, she has her own college. These appar-
ent deprivations are enrichments. They concentrate genius. The few hours of
regular schooling were counterbalanced with lessons from Dame Nature herself.
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild-flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell.
How the woodchuck digs his cell.
How the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the groundnut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way.
Mason of his walls of clay.
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans ! —
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks.
He goes on autobiographically :
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played.
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
BIOGRAnilCAL SKETCH.
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond.
Mine, on bending orchard trees.
Apples of Hesperides !
There was scanty time for play, however; that perpetual interest was eating up
the meagre products of the farm; boys had to put their hands to the plough. " At
an early age," he says, " I was set at work on the farm and doing errands for my
mother, who, in addition to her ordinary house duties, was busy in spinning and
weaving the linen and woollen cloth needed for the family."
The family was large, consisting, says Whittier, of " my father, mother, my
brother and two sisters, and my uncle and aunt, both unmarried." In addition
there was the district school-master, who boarded with them.
For graphic pen-pictures of this group, one must go to " Snow-Bound." There
we shall see Uncle Moses, with whom the boys delighted to go fishing in the dancing
brook.
His aunt. Miss Hussey, had the reputation of making the best squash pies that
were ever baked. The influence of pie in developing character must not be over-
looked. What oatmeal was to Carlyle, what the haggis was to Burns, the pie was to
the true New Englander. It will not be forgotten how fond Emerson was of pie.
Indigestion and poetry have a certain strange alliance; did not Byron purposely
exacerbate his stomach in order to coin "Don Juan" into guineas?
Each member of that delightful household stands forth in living lines. " Snow-
Bound " now needs no praise. It has been accepted as the typical idyl of a New
England winter, the sweetest flower of New England home life.
It is greater than "The Cotter's Saturday Night" because it was written more
from the heart. It stands with " The Cotter's Saturday Night " and, though, quite
unlike, may have been inspired by Burns's immortal poem. To Burns, Whittier owed
his first inspiration, and he himself tells how he learned first to know the Scotch
poet. A wandering Scotchman came one day to the Whittier farmhouse. "After
eating his bread and cheese and drinking his mug of cider, he gave us * Bonnie
Doon,' ' Highland Mary,' and * Auld Lang vSyne.' He had a full rich voice and
entered heartily into the spirit of his lyrics." When he was fourteen, Joshua Coffin
brought a volume of Burns's poems, and read some of them, greatly to his delight.
Says Whittier : " I begged him to leave the book with me, and set myself at once to
the task of mastering the glossary of the Scottish dialect to its close. This was about
the first poetry I had ever read (with the exception of that of the Bible, of which I
had been a close student), and it had a lasting influence upon me. I began to make
rhymes myself, and to imagine stories and adventure." When pen and ink failed
him, he resorted to ^chalk or charcoal, and he hid away his effusions with the care
with which a cat hides her young kittens.
BIOGRArHICAL SKETCH.
It is interesting to know that recently one or two of Whittier's first attempts in
rhyme, in Scotch dialect and in the manner of Burns, have been discovered.
When Whittier was in his eighteenth year, that is, in 1825, he wrote several poems
which found their way the following year to the Newburyport Free Press, then just
established by William Lloyd Garrison. The Whittiers subscribed for it, and in the
" Poets' Corner " appeared in print the first of the young man's published verses,
entitled " The Exile's Departure," written in the metre of " The Old Oaken Bucket."
It is noticeable that the Exile sings : —
Farewell, shores of Erin, green land of my fathers.
Once more and forever, a mournful adieu.
It would seem that Thomas Moore's Irish melodies must have fallen into his
hands. The trace of Whittier's reading is often to be found in his poems. " Mogg
Megone " also shows the insidious influence of " Lalla Rookh." " The Bridal of Pen-
nacook " is Wordsworth, pure and simple, the praise of whom betrays its origin ;
but not as yet, and not until long afterwards, did he succeed in attaining felicity in
epithet. It was also the day of the Scott and of the Byron fever, and Whittier did
not escape it.
It is said that Whittier was mending fences when the carrier brought the paper
that contained his first printed lines and the editorial notice : " If W. at Haverhill
will continue to favor us with pieces beautiful as the one inserted in our poetical
department of to-day, we shall esteem it a favor." Whittier could hardly believe his
eyes. He accepted the invitation. The second of his Free Press poems was in
blank verse and entitled " Deity." He confided the secret to his sister. She in-
formed Garrison that it was her brother who wrote them. One day when the young
poet was hoeing in the cornfield, clad only in shirt, trousers, and straw hat, he was
summoned into the house to see a visitor. It proved to be Garrison, who had driven
over from Newburyport to make the acquaintance of his contributor. He insisted
that Whittier showed such talent that he ought to have further education.
Whittier's father remonstrated against putting notions into the lad's head. " Sir,"
he said, "poetry will not give him bread." Besides, there was no money and no
prospect of money. Suddenly a way opened. A young hired man knew how to
make ladies' shoes and slippers. He offered to teach the art to his employer's son.
Mr. Moses Emerson, one of Whittier's early teachers, used to relate how Whittier
worked at his shoemaking in a Httle shop which stood in the yard, and how he sat
on a bench amid tanned hides, pincers, bristles, paste pots, and rosin, stitching for
dear life.
During the following winter he earned by it enough money to buy a suit of
clothes and pay for six months' schooling at the new Academy in Haverhill. Whit-
tier wrote the ode that was sung at the dedication of the new building. He boarded
at the house of Mr. A. W. Thayer, editor and publisher of the Haverhill Gazette,
Naturally the young poet contributed also to this paper some of his verses. He was
now nineteen, and was long remembered as " a very handsome, distinguished-looking
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
young man " with remarkably handsome eyes; tall, slight, and very erect, bashful but
never awkward.
Whittier used to like to relate the story of his first visit to Boston. He was
dressed in a new suit of homespun, which for the first time were adorned with
*' boughten buttons." He expected to spend a week with the Greenes, who were
family connections. Shortly after his arrival he saUied forth to see the sights. He
described how he wandered up and down the streets, but somehow found it different
from what he expected. The crowd was worse on Washington Street, and he soon
got tired of being jostled and thought he would step aside into an alley-way and
wait till " the folks " got by. But there was no cessation of the " terrible stream
of people," some of whom stared at him with curious or mocking eyes. He stayed
there a long time and began to be " lonesome."
At last, however, he mustered courage to leave his "coign of vantage," and
safely reached Mrs. Greene's in time for tea. She had guests, among them a gay
young woman whose beauty and vivacity especially interested him. But she began
to talk about the theatre, and finally asked him to be present that evening. She was
the leading lady ! Whittier had promised his mother that he would never enter a
playhouse. He was terribly shocked at the danger which he had run. He could not
sleep that night, and next morning he took the early stage-coach for his country
home. In after years he told this story with great zest, but he never broke the
promise which he made to his mother.
At the close of the term, W^hittier taught the district school at West Amesbury,
thus enabling him to return for another six months at the Academy. Garrison had
meantime gone to Boston, and through his influence Whittier secured a place there
at a salary of nine dollars a week on the American Alanufacturer. But this engage-
ment was of short duration. In 1830 he was editing the Haverhill Gazette. He was
beginning to be widely known as a poet. Next he became editor of the New
England Weekly Review of Hartford, Conn., to which he also contributed upwards
of forty poems, besides sketches and tales in prose. He boarded at the Exchange
Coffee House, and lived a solitary, sedentary life. His health even then was delicate.
At this time, if ever, occurred the hinted romance of his life. Writing of a visit to
his home, he said : " I can say that I have clasped more than one fair hand, and
read my welcome in more than one bright eye." More than one love-poem dated
from this time. Long afterwards he touched upon these episodes in " Memories "
and in " A Sea-dream." But Whittier never married.
He published his first volume in 1831, — "Legends of New England," a collection
of his prose and verse. This was afterwards suppressed, as well as his first narrative .
poem, " Moll Pitcher," published the following year. So far, with much promise, he
had as yet shown little originality. He bade fair to be simply a poet. But two years
later he took part in an event which was destined to change the face of all things,
not for him alone, but for his country. In 1833 he helped to organize the American
Anti-slavery Society. Henceforth, during a whole generation, his life was to be a
warfare : — •
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Our fathers to their graves have gone;
Their strife is past, their triumph won;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honored place, —
A moral warfare with the crime
And folly of an evil time.
So let it be. In God's own might
We gird us for the coming fight,
And, strong in Him whose cause is ours
In conflict with unholy powers,
W^e grasp the weapons He has given, —
The Light and Truth and Love of Heaven.
Side by side with William Lloyd Garrison stood W^hittier. The manifesto of the
one was the inspiration of the other : " I will be harsh as truth and as uncom-
promising as justice. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;
I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard ! "
Whittier in the same spirit sang : —
If we have whispered truth, whisper no longer;
Speak as the tempest does, sterner and stronger;
Still be the tones of truth louder and firmer,
Startling the haughty South with the deep murmur;
God and our charter's right. Freedom forever,
Truce with oppression, never, oh, never !
Nor would he allow the charms of mere literature to beguile him into pleasant
paths. Putting aside melancholy, sentimental yearnings, he resisted the temptation,
as he pathetically sings in the poem entitled " Ego."
The question of slavery began to be borne in upon him even before he settled in
Hartford. On his return home he made a thorough study of the subject and wrote
a twenty-three page pamphlet entitled "Justice and Expediency; or. Slavery Con-
sidered with a View to its Rightful and Effectual Remedy, — Abolition." It was
printed at Haverhill at his own expense. Its argument was never answered. It con-
cluded with this eloquent peroration : —
"And when the stain on our own escutcheon shall be seen no more; when the
Declaration of Independence and the practice of our people shall agree; when
Truth shall be exalted among us; when Love shall take the place of Wrong; when
all the baneful pride and prejudice of caste and color shall fall forever; when under
one common sun of political Liberty the slave-holding portions of our Republic shall
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
no longer sit like Egyptians of old, themselves mantled in thick darkness while all
around them is glowing with the blessed light of freedom and equality — then and
not till then shall it go well for America."
This preceded and led to his appointment as one of the delegates of the great
Anti-slavery Convention at Philadelphia. Next to Magna Charta and the Declaration
of Independence, the Declaration of Principles then formulated, and signed by
Whittier, is a document of which the generations unborn will be most proud. A
copy of it framed in wood from Pennsylvania Hall, destroyed by a pro-slavery mob,
was one of Whittier's most precious possessions.
In spite of his stand on an unpopular side, Whittier's character was appreciated
by his fellow-citizens. He was elected a member of the Massachusetts State legis-
lature in 1835. -^^ ^^^^ ^"^y ^^^ other public office — that of presidential elector.
But the people of his own communion looked askance upon his political, reformatory,
and literary achievements. He was even brought into danger of disciplme, and it is
said that in his later days he used to remark jokingly that not until he was old would
the Quakers of his society show any willingness to put upon him the little dignities
from which his position as a reformer had in his youth excluded him.
The very year that he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, he had his
first experience of a mob. George Thompson, the famous English abolitionist and
member of Parliament, came to this country to preach abolition. It was noised
abroad that he was brought over to disseminate dissension between North and South,
so as to destroy American trade, to the advantage of British. This noble reformer
had narrowly escaped a mob in Salem. Whittier invited him to his East Haverhill
home, that he might have perfect rest and quiet. The two men enjoyed making hay
together and were entirely unmolested. At last they started to drive to Plymouth,
N. H., to visit a prominent abolitionist there. On their way they stopped at Concord,
where Thompson was invited to speak on reform.
After the lecture they found it impossible to leave the hall, which was surrounded
by a mob of several hundred persons. On their way back, they were assailed with
stones. Whittier declared that he understood how St. Paul felt when the Jews
attacked him. Fortunately, their heads were not broken, but they were severely
lamed. The mob surrounded the house and demanded that the Quaker and his
guest should be handed over to them. His host opened the door and exclaimed :
" W^hoever comes in here must come in over my dead body." Decoyed away, the
rabble returned with muskets and a cannon. Their lives were in danger. They
managed to harness a horse, and then, when the gate was suddenly opened, they
drove off at a furious gallop and escaped from the hooting mob, which one of them-
selves afterwards declared was like a throng of demons. At Plymouth they narrowly
escaped another mobbing. Not long after, when Whittier was attending an extra
session of the legislature, the female anti-slavery society meeting was broken up by a
mob. The police rescued Garrison, just as they were going to hang him to a lamp-
post. Whittier's sister was one of the delegates, and the two were stopping at the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
same house. Whittier managed to remove her to a place of safety; he and Samuel
J. May sat up all night watching developments. Those w^ere exciting times.
Most of the year Whittier, like Cincinnatus, worked his farm. His father had
died, and the brunt of the burden of supporting the family rested on him. He
was often seen in the fall of the year at the head of tide-water in the Merrimack,
exchanging apples and vegetables for the salt fish brought by coasting vessels. In
the spring of March, 1838, he went to Philadelphia to edit the Pennsylvanici Free-
??ian, which had its offices in a large building built by the anti-slavery people, and
named Pennsylvania Hall. It was publicly opened on the fifteenth of May with
speeches, and a long poem by Whittier. That evening a stone was flung through
one of the windows of the hall. This was the preliminary symptom of impending
trouble. The next day a mob collected and disturbed the meetings with their jeers
and yells. On the third day, in spite of the association's formal demand for protec-
tion, and the mayor's promise, the building was given into the hands of the mob,
which sacked it and then set it on fire. The firemen refused to quench the flames
and were complimented by the Southern press on their noble conduct. One paper
printed a boasting letter from a participant saying: "Not a drop of water did they
pour on that accursed Moloch until it was a heap of ruins."
A charitable shelter for colored orphans was also burned, and a colored church
was attacked and wrecked. The members of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society
met the next morning after the outrage, beside the smoking ruins of their hall, and
calmly elected their officers while a vast mob was still howling around them.
Whittier's investment in the paper was lost, but he stayed in Philadelphia for about
a year, when his failing health compelled him to return to Massachusetts. The East
Haverhill farm was sold in 1840, and he removed with his mother, sister, and aunt to
Amesbury, which was his legal residence through the rest of his life. Within ten or
twelve minutes' walk of Whittier's house rises Pow-wow Hill, so often celebrated in
his verse. The surrounding region which is visible from it has been well called his
Ayrshire: far to the north the White Mountains are dimly visible, — his beloved
Ossipee and Bearcamp. To the south, Agamenticus — Adamaticus, as the natives
call it — stands in its purple isolation. The Isles of Shoals are visible, like rough
stones in a turquoise arch, the lone line of beaches which he often called by
name, and the rock-ribbed coast of Cape Ann. Scarcely a point which had not a
legend, scarcely a legend which he did not put into verse.
After the death of his sister and the marriage of his niece, he resided during
the most of the year with his cousins, at their beautiful country-seat at Oak Knoll,
Danvers.
The storm and stress were past. Henceforth, for the most part, he devoted his
genius to song. His watchword was : —
Our country, and Liberty and God for the Right.
He was not afraid to lift the whip of scorpion stings : he called the pro-slavery
congressmen : —
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
A passive herd of Northern mules,
Just braying from their purchased throats
Whate'er their owner rules.
The Northern author of the congressional rule against receiving the petitions of
the people in regard to slavery was thus held up to execration : —
, , . the basest of the base,
The vilest of the vile, — ...
:i< »K 9|c * 4: *
A mark for every passing blast
Of scorn to whistle through.
When he felt that Daniel Webster, whom he had so much admired, was recreant,
he wrote against him that tremendous accusation entitled "Ichabod." He never
ceased, however, to regret the severity of those awful lines, which make Browning's
" Lost Leader " sound flat and insipid in comparison.
Whittier was never despondent. In the darkest hours he saw the rainbow
promise bent on high.
He cried in 1844 to the men of Massachusetts: ■ —
Shrink not from strife unequal !
With the best is always hope;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up !
Thus, while he knew how to apply the lash, he also could cheer, and encourage, and
advise. His practical common sense, his clear vision, saw far ahead.
It would be impossible to write the history of Emancipation and not recognize
the influence of Whittier's lyrics. Lacking in imagination, in grace, in what is
commonly called poetic charm, often clumsy, ill-rhymed, and unrhythmical, they yet
have an awakening power like that of a trumpet. Plain and unadorned, they
appealed to a plain and simple people. They won their way by these very homely
qualities.
Whittier learned from his parents the art of story-telUng. Naturally, the Indians
first appealed to him, and many of his earliest poems have the Red-skins as their
heroes; speaking of " Mogg Megone" many years after it was written, he
says : —
" Looking at it at the present time, it suggests the idea of a big Indian in his
war-paint strutting about in Sir Walter Scott's plaid."
But the early history of New England was full of folk-lore, and Whittier had the
ballad-maker's instinct. As he grew older, his sureness of touch increased. The
homely names conferred on his native brooks and ponds fitted into his verse.
Thus : —
BIOGRAnilCAL SKETCH.
The dark pines sing on Ramoth Hill
The slow song of the sea.
The sweetbriar blooms on Kittery-side
And green are Eliot's bowers.
And he talks about the " nuts of Wenham woods."
One could quote hundreds of such felicitous touches, which endear a poet to his
neighbors and then to his nation. Catching hold of the New England legends and
turning them into homely rhymes, as a ballad -singer would have done in the early
days, he becomes not only the poet, but the creator of the legends. The very mean-
ing of the word "poet" is the maker. A friend sends him the rough prose outline
of a story connected with some old house, and Whittier easily remodels it and makes
it his own. Thus he is the Poet of New England, and as New England has colonized
the West, his fame spreads over the whole land. He gets hearers for himself by
this double capacity. He is the ballad-maker; and in this view he stands far higher
as a poet than in his nobler but less poetic capacity of Laureate of Freedom and
Faith. The word " Liberty" has a hundred rhymes; the word "slave" its dozens.
How the poet is put to it when he wants to find a rhyme for " love " ! " Dove " and
" above " and " glove " are about all the words that are left to him. Whittier, with
his ease of rhyming, put little poetry but immense feeling into his anti-slavery poems.
Not by them will he be judged as a poet.
He has still another claim on us. He was the descendant of godly men and
women. No American poet of his rank was so distinctively religious, and yet his
verse is absolutely
undimmed
By dust of theologic strife or breath
Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore.
He could not be kept within the narrow limits of a sect. His religion was a
vital principle with him. Like his own " Quaker of the Olden Time," he made his
daily life a prayer. Faith in God was supreme. Read any of his hymns, his ad-
dresses to friends, his memorials to the dead; there are more than seventy of
them gathered in the second volume of his collected works. How they speak of
immortality and the Eternal Goodness ! In one of his last poems, while he speaks
almost mournfully of sitting alone and watching the
warm, sweet day
Lapse tenderly away,
he calms his troubled thought with these words : —
Wait, while these few swift-passing days fulfil
The wise-disposing Will,
And, in the evening as at morning, trust
The All-merciful and Just. '
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
The solemn joy that soul-communion feels
Immortal life reveals;
And human love, its prophecy and sign,
Interprets love divine.
One of his letters was written in favor of a union of the numerous sects in the
one vital centre — the Christ. After this, it seems almost ungracious to speak criti-
cally of Whittier's work. He himself often wished that at least half of it were sunk
in the Red Sea. A good deal of his early work had indeed
The simple air and rustic dress
And sign of haste and carelessness
which he attributes to it, but also it was
More than the specious counterfeit
Of sentiment or studied wit.
He calls his verse " simple lays of homely toil.'*
He may have written commonplaces, but he declared that he could not trace the
cold and heartless commonplace.
Whittier was utterly color-blind; he also declared that he did not know anything
of music, " not one tune from another." " The gods made him most unmusical," he
whimsically remarked. Lack of musical ear is not uncommon in poets. Burns was
behind all his schoolmates in that respect. Bryant had no music in his soul; Byron
also lacked it. The rhythmic sense atones for the lack. Whittier, unlike Lowell,
did not try to write in the Yankee dialect, but his origin betrayed itself. The long-
suffering " r " was absolutely ignored. We have such rhymes as "gone — worn —
horn"; "war — squaw"; "accurst — lust" (as though he pronounced it accust)\
"water — escort her"; "honor and scorner"; "off — serf"; "sisters — vistas";
"reward and God" (such infelicities did not offend his taste); "farmer — ham-
mer " ; " thus — curse " ; " ever — leave her — Eva " ; " favors — save us " ; " tellers
— Cinderellas"; "treasures — maize-ears"; "woody — sturdy"; " Katahdin's —
gardens." He, like Byron (who pronounced " camelopard " " camel-leopard "), often
put the wrong accents on words: " strong-//^/^," " ^;2-cestral," "/^/-troons," "grape-
vine^'' " moon-^/^z«^," " r^-mance," " z/z^-lin" as though in two syllables. True to his
Quaker origin, he rarely makes reference to music. Once he speaks of " The light
viol and the mellow flute." He rarely indulges in comparisons. In that respect he
is like the author of the Iliad. As a general thing his lines flow rather monotonously
in the four-line ballad metre; he was neither bold nor very happy in more compli-
cated structures of verse. His few sonnets were not successful. Sometimes he
allowed the exigences of rhyme to force him into showing the Indian's birchen boat
propelled by glancing oars. He once in a while wrote such lines as tliese : —
^ The faded coloring of Time's tapestry
Let Fancy with her dream-dipt brush supply.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Whittier, in conversation with his intimates, possessed a remarkable vein of
humor; his letters are full of drolleries, but he seemed to have little sense of the
ludicrous, else he could not have written such a line as
Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea,
or
From the rude board of Bonython
Venison and succotash have gone.
He rarely indulged in alliteration, yet we find "greenly growing grain" and
" Summer's shade and sunshine w^arm." In one place he boldly indulges for rhyme's
sake in such bad grammar as this : —
When Warkworth wood
Closed o'er my steed and I.
And again : " twixt thou and I." In spite of these faults, we would not willingly let
a line of Whittier's verse perish. Even the fugitive pieces of his youth, which he
himself came to detest, the crudities of " Mogg Megone," are interesting and valu-
able. When his verse is studied chronologically, it is easy to see what constant
progress he made. It was the noble growth of a New England pine, which, while
the branches near the ground are dead and broken, still towers up higher and higher,
with ever abundant foliage toward the sun-kissed top. And what pictures he
painted !
Whittier, without the advantages, or so-called advantages, of college training,
without ever travelling abroad, a hermit, almost, in his later years, keeping aloof from
the people, painfully suffering from constant ill-health, unable to work half an hour at a
time, ranks with the greatest of American men of letters. His prose is simple and pure ;
his verse goes right to the heart. It is free from the sentimentality and turbidity of
Lowell, from the artificiality that we sometimes feel in Longfellow, from the classic
coldness of Bryant. He was the poet of the people, and yet the cultured find no
less to love and admire in him. To have written " Snow-Bound " alone would have
been to achieve immortality. But Whittier wrote so many popular poems, w^hich
have become household words, that I have not even attempted to enumerate them or
the date of their appearing.
He lived to see the crown of immortality unanimously conferred upon him. He
lived to a grand old age, and yet he has said that for many years not merely the exer-
tion of writing but even the mere thought of taking his pen into his hand brought on
a terrible headache. Neither could he read with comfort. He therefore had to sit
patiently and wait for Friend Death to come and lead him into that world where he
believed the loved ones were waiting to welcome him. He died on the seventh of
September, 1892, not at his favorite abiding-place at Oak Knoll, Danvers, but at
Hampton Falls, N. H., where he was visiting the daughter of an old friend. Pure,
simple, humble, unspoiled, full of love to God and man, triumphing in his faith,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Whittier went forward into the unknown. Such a death is not to be deplored. He
was willing, nay, anxious to go.
Let the thick curtain fall;
I better know than all
How little I have gained,
How vast the unattained.
Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.
Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of, win !
The airs of heaven blow o'er me,
A glory shines before me
Of what mankind shall be —
Pure, generous, brave, and free.
Ring, bells in unreared steeples,
The joy of unborn peoples !
Sound, trumpets far off blown.
Your triumph is my own !
NATPIAN HASKELL DOLE.
NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
TO THE EDITION OF 1 85/.
In these volumes, for the first time, a complete collection of
my poetical writings has been made. While it is satisfactory to
know that these scattered children of my brain have found a
home, I cannot but regret that I have been unable, by reason of
illness, to give that attention to their revision and arrangement,
which respect for the opinions of others and my own afterthought
and experience demand.
That there are pieces in this collection which I would ** will-
ingly let die," I am free to confess. But it is now too late to
disown them, and I must submit to the inevitable penalty of
poetical as v/ell as other sins. There are others, intimately con-
nected with the author's life and times, which owe their tenacity
of vitality to the circumstances under which they were written,
and the events by which they were suggested.
The long poem of Mogg Megone was, in a great measure,
composed in early life ; and it is scarcely necessary to say that
its subject is not such as the writer would have chosen at any
subsequent period.
J. G. W.
Amesbury, \%th ;^d mo., 1857.
PROEM.
I XOVE the old melodious lays
Which softly melt the ages through,
The songs of Spenser's golden days,
Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.
Yet, vainly in my quiet hours ' ^
To breathe their marvellous notes I try ;
I feel them, as the leaves and flowers
In silence feel the dewy showers.
And drink with glad still lips the blessing of the sky.
The rigor of a frozen clime.
The harshness of an untaught ear,
The jarring words of one whose rhyme
Beat often Labor's hurried time.
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here.
Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace.
No rounded art the lack supphes ;
Unskilled the subtle lines to trace,
Or softer shades of Nature's face,
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.
Nor mine the seer-hke power to show
The secrets of the heart and mind ;
To drop the plummet-line below
Our common world of joy and woe,
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find.
Yet here at least an earnest sense
Of human right and weal is shown ;
A hate of tyranny intense.
And hearty in its vehemence.
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own.
O Freedom ! if to me belong
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine,
Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song,
Still with a love as deep and strong
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine !
Amesbury, nth mo., 1847.
POEMS OF WHITTIER.
oJOJo
MOGG MEGONE, 1835.
[The story of MOGG Megone has been considered by the author only as a framework
for sketches of the scenery of New England, and of its early inhabitants. In portraying
the Indian character, he has followed, as closely as his story would admit, the rough but
natural delineations of Church, Mayhew, Charlevoix, and Roger Williams ; and in so doing
he has necessarily discarded much of the romance which poets and novelists have thrown
around the ill-fated red man.]
PART I.
Who stands on that cliff, like a figure
of stone,
Unmoving and tall in the light of
the sky,
Where the spray of the cataract
sparkles on high,
Lonely and sternly, save Mogg Me-
gone?
Close to the verge of the rock is he,
While beneath him the Saco its
work is doing,
Hurrying down to its grave, the sea,
And slow through the rock its path-
way hewing!
Far down, through the mist of the fall-
ing river.
Which rises up like an incense ever,
The splintered points of the crags are
seen,
h wat
tween,
While the scooping whirl of the pool
beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite
teeth !
But Mogg Megone never trembled yet
Wherever his eye or his foot was set.
He is watchful: each form in the
moonlight dim,
Of rock or of tree, is seen of him :
B
He listens ; each sound from afar is
caught.
The faintest shiver of leaf and limb :
But he sees not the waters, which
foam and fret,
Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin
wet, —
And the roar of their rushing, he
hears it not.
The moonlight, through the open
bough
Of the gnarPd beech, whose naked
root
Coils like a serpent at his foot,
Falls, checkered, on the Indian^s
brow.
His head is bare, save only where
Waves in the wind one lock of hair.
Reserved for him, whoe'er he be.
More mighty than Megone in strife.
When, breast to breast and knee to
knee.
Above the fallen warrior's life
Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-
knife.
Megone hath his knife and hatchet
and gun.
And his gaudy and tasselled blanket
on :
His knife hath a handle with gold
inlaid,
MOGG MEGONE.
And magic words on its polished
blade, —
'T was the gift of Castine to Mogg
Megone,
For a scalp or twain from the Yengees
torn :
His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine,
And Modocawando's wives had
strung -^
The brass and the beads, which tinkle
and shine
On the polished breech, and broad
bright line
Of beaded wampum around it hung.
What seeks Megone? His foes are
near, —
Gray Jocelyn's eye is never sleeping,
And the garrison lights are burning
clear.
Where Phillips' men their watch
are keeping.
Let him hie him away through the
dank river fog.
Never rustling the boughs nor dis-
placing the rocks,
For the eyes and the ears which are
watching for Mogg,
Are keener than those of the wolf
or the fox.
He starts, — there's a rustle among
the leaves :
Another, — the click of his gun is
heard!
A footstep — is it the step of Cleaves,
With Indian blood on his English
sword?
Steals Harmon down from the sands
of York,
With hand of iron and foot of cork?
Has Scamman, versed in Indian
wile.
For vengeance left his vine-hung isle ?
Hark! at that whistle, soft and low,
How lights the eye of Mogg Me-
gone!
A smile gleams o'er his dusky brow, —
'-* Boon welcome, Johnny Bony-
thon!"
Out steps, with cautious foot and slow,
And quick, keen glances to and fro,
The hunted outlaw, Bonython!
A low, lean, swarthy man is he.
With blanket-garb and buskined knee,
And naught of English fashion on ;
For he hates the race from whence
he sprung.
And he couches his words in the
Indian tongue.
" Hush, — let the Sachem's voice be
weak ;
The water-rat shall hear him speak, —
The owl shall whoop in the white
man's ear.
That Mogg Megone, with his scalps,
is here ! "
He pauses, — dark, over cheek and
brow,
A flush, as of shame, is stealing now :
"Sachem!" he says, "let me have
the land.
Which stretches away upon either
hand.
As far about as my feet can stray
In the half of a gentle summer's day.
From the leaping brook to the Saco
river, —
And the fair-haired girl, thou hast
sought of me,
Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam,
and be
The wife of Mogg Megone forever."
There 's a sudden light in the Indian's
glance,
A moment's trace of powerful feeling,
Of love or triumph, or both perchance,
Over his proud, calm features steal-
ing.
"The words of my father are very good ;
He shall have the land, and water,
and wood ;
And he who harms the Sagamore John,
Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone ;
But the fawn of the Yengees shall
sleep on my breast,
And the bird of the clearing shall
sing in my nest."
MOGG MEGONE.
*^But, father!'' — and the Indian's
hand
Falls gently on the white man's arm,
And with a smile as shrewdly bland
As the deep voice is slow and calm, —
" Where is my father's singing-bird, —
The sunny eye, and sunset hair?
I know I have my father's word,
And that his word is good and fair ;
But will my father tell me where
Megone shall go and look for his
bride ? —
For he sees her not by her father's
side."
The dark, stern eye of Bony th on
Flashes over the features of Mogg
Megone,
In one of those glances which search
within ;
But the stolid calm of the Indian alone
Remains where the trace of emotion
has been.
"Does the Sachem doubt? Let him
go with me.
And the eyes of the Sachem his bride
shall see."
Cautious and slow, with pauses oft.
And watchflil eyes and whispers soft.
The twain are stealing through the
wood.
Leaving the downward-rushing flood.
Whose deep and solemn roar behind
Grows fainter on the evening wind.
Hark! — is that the angry howl
Of the wolf, the hills among? —
Or the hooting of the owl,
On his leafy cradle swung? —
Quickly glancing, to and fro.
Listening to each sound they go
Round the columns of the pine.
Indistinct, in shadow% seeming
Like some old and pillared shrine ;
With the soft and white moonshine.
Round the foliage-tracery shed
Of each column's branching head.
For its lamps of worship "gleaming!
And the sounds awakened there.
In the pine-leaves fine and small.
Soft and sweetly musical.
By the fingers of the air.
For the anthem's dying fall
Lingering round some temple's wall!
Niche and cornice round and round
Wailing like the ghost of sound!
Is not Nature's worship thus.
Ceaseless ever, going on ?
Hath it not a voice for us
In the thunder, or the tone
Of the leaf-harp faint and small.
Speaking to the unsealed ear
Words of blended love and fear,
Of the mighty Soul of all?
Naught had the twain of thoughts
like these
As they wound along through the
crowded trees.
Where never had rung the axeman's
stroke
On the gnarled trunk of the rough-
barked oak ; —
Climbing the dead tree's mossy log.
Breaking the mesh of the bramble
fine.
Turning aside the wild grape vine.
And lightly crossing the quaking bog
Whose surface shakes at the leap of
the frog,
And out of whose pools the ghostly fog
Creeps into the chill moonshine!
Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard
The preaching of the Holy Word :
Sanchekantacket's isle of sand
Was once his father's hunting land.
Where zealous Hiacoomes stood, —
The wild apostle of the wood.
Shook from his soul the fear of harm,
And trampled on the Powwaw's charm ;
Until the wizard's curses hung
Suspended on his palsying tongue.
And the fierce warrior, grim and tall,
Trembled before the forest Paul I
A cottage hidden in the wood, —
Red through its seams a light is
f^lowino^.
MOGG MEGONE.
On rock and bough and tree-trunk
rude,
A narrow lustre throwing.
"Who's there?'' a clear, firm voice
demands ;
"Hold, Ruth, — 'tis I, the Saga-
more ! "
Quick, at the summons, hasty hands
Unclose the bolted door ;
And on the outlaw's daughter shine
The flashes of the kindled pine.
Tall and erect the maiden stands,
Like some young priestess of the
wood.
The freeborn child of Solitude,
And bearing still the wild and
rude.
Yet noble trace of Nature's hands.
Her dark brown cheek has caught its
stain
More from the sunshine than the rain ;
Yet, where her long fair hair is parting,
A pure white brow into light is start-
ing;
And, where the folds of her blanket
sever.
Are a neck and bosom as white as ever
The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping
river.
But in the convulsive quiver and grip
Of the muscles around her bloodless
lip,
There is something painfiil and sad
to see ;
And her eye has a glance more sternly
wild
Than even that of a forest child
In its fearless and untamed free-
dom should be.
Yet, seldom in hall or court are seen
So queenly aform and so noble a mien,
As freely and smiling she welcomes
them there, —
Her outlawed sire and Mogg Megone :
" Pray, father, how does thy hunt-
ing fare?
And, Sachem, say, — does Scamman
wear.
In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his
own ? "
Hurried and light is the maiden's tone ;
But a fearful meaning lurks within
Her glance, as it questions the eye of
Megone, —
An awful meaning of guilt and sin ! —
The Indian hath opened his blanket,
and there
Hangs a human scalp by its long damp
hair !
With hand upraised, with quick-drawn
breath.
She meets that ghastly sign of death.
In one long, glassy, spectral stare
The enlarging eye is fastened there.
As if that mesh of pale brown hair
Had power to change at sight alone.
Even as the fearful locks which wound
Medusa's fatal forehead round.
The gazer into stone.
With such a look Herodias read
The features of the bleeding head.
So looked the mad Moor on his dead,
Or the young Cenci as she stood,
O'er-dabbled with a father's blood !
Look ! — feeling melts that frozen
glance.
It moves that marble countenance.
As if at once within her strove
Pity with shame, and hate with love.
The Past recalls its joy and pain,
Old memories rise before her brain, —
The lips which love's embraces met,
The hand her tears of parting wet,
The voice whose pleading tones be-
guiled
The pleased ear of the forest-child, —
And tears she may no more repress
Reveal her lingering tenderness.
O, woman wronged, can cherish
hate
More deep and dark than manhood
may;
But when the mockery of Fate
Hath left Revenge its chosen way.
And the fell curse, which years have
nursed,
MOGG MEGONE.
Full on the spoiler's head hath burst, —
When all her wrong, and shame, and
pain,
Burns fiercely on his heart and brain, —
Still lingers something of the spell
Which bound her to the traitor's
bosom, —
Still, midst the vengeful fires of hell,
Some flowers of old affection blos-
John Bonython's eyebrows together
are drawn
With a fierce expression of wrath and
scorn. —
He hoarsely whispers, '* Ruth, beware !
Is this the time to be playing the
fool, —
Crying over a paltry lock of hair.
Like a love-sick girl at school ? —
Curse on it! — an Indian can see and
hear :
Away, — and prepare our evening
cheer! "
How keenly the Indian is watching
now
Her tearful eye and her varying brow, —
With a serpent eye, which kindles
and burns.
Like a fiery star in the upper air :
On sire and daughter his fierce glance
turns : —
" Has my old white father a scalp
to spare?
For his young one loves the pale
brown hair
Of the scalp of an English dog, far
more
Than Mogg Megone, or his wigwam
floor:
Go, — Mogg is wise : he will keep
his land, —
And Sagamore John, when he feels
with his hand.
Shall miss his scalp where it grew
before.''
The moment's gust of grief is
gone, —
The lip is clenched, — the tears are
still, —
God pity thee, Ruth Bonython!
With what a strength of will
Are nature's feelings in thy breast,
As with an iron hand, repressed!
And how, upon that nameless woe.
Quick as the pulse can come and go.
While shakes the unsteadfast knee,
and yet
The bosom heaves, — the eye is wet, —
Has thy dark spirit power to stay
The heart's wdld current on its way?
And whence that baleful strength
of guile.
Which over that still working brow
And tearful eye and cheek, can
throw
The mockery of a smile?
Warned by her father's blackening
frown.
With one strong effort crushing down
Grief, hate, remorse, she meets again
The savage murderer's sullen gaze.
And scarcely look or tone betrays
How the heart strives beneath its
chain.
"Is the Sachem angry, — angry with
Ruth,
Because she cries with an ache in her
tooth,
W^hich would make a Sagamore jump
and cry.
And look about with a woman's eye?
No, — Ruth will sit in the Sachem's
door
And braid the mats for his wig^vam
floor.
And broil his fish and tender faw^n,
And weave his wampum, and grind
his corn, —
For she loves the brave and the wise,
and none
Are braver and wiser than Mogg Me-
gone ! ''
The Indian's brow is clear once more :
With grave, calm face, and half-shut
eye,
MOGG MEGONE.
He sits upon the wigwam floor,
Will he make his mark, that it may
And watches Ruth go by.
be known.
Intent upon her household care;
On the speaking-leaf, that he gives the
And ever and anon, the while,
land.
Or on the maiden, or her fore,
From the Sachem's own, to his father's
Which smokes in grateful promise
hand?"
there.
The fire-water shines in the Indian's
Bestows his quiet smile.
eyes, ^
As he rises, the white man's bidding
Ah, Mogg Megone! — what dreams
to do :
are thine.
'' Wuttamuttata — weekan ! Mogg is
But those which love's own fancies
wise, —
dress, —
For the water he drinks is strong
The sum of Indian happiness ! —
and new, —
A wigwam, where the warm sunshine
Mogg s heart is great! — will he shut
Looks in among the groves of pine, —
his hand,
A stream, where, round thy light
When his father asks for a little
canoe,
land?" —
The trout and salmon dart in view.
With unsteady fingers, the Indian has
And the fair girl, before thee now.
drawn
Spreading thy mat with hand of snow,
On the parchment the shape of a
Or plying, in the dews of morn.
hunter's bow.
Her hoe amidst thy patch of corn,
" Boon water, — boon water, — Saga-
Or offering up, at eve, to thee.
more John!
Thy birchen dish of hominy!
Wuttamuttata, — weekan ! our hearts
will grow ! "
From the rude board of Bonython,
He drinks yet deeper, — he mutters
Venison and suckatash have gone, —
low, —
For long these dwellers of the wood
He reels on his bear-skin to and
Have felt the gnawing want of food.
fro, —
But untasted of Ruth is the frugal
His head falls down on his naked
cheer, —
breast, —
With head averted, yet ready ear.
He struggles, and sinks to a drunken
She stands by the side of her austere
rest.
sire.
Feeding, at times, the unequal fire
" Humph — drunk as a beast ! " — and
With the yellow knots of the pitch-
Bonython's brow
pine tree.
Is darker than ever with evil
Whose flaring light, as they kindle.
thought —
fells
" The fool has signed his warrant ;
On the cottage-roof, and its black log
but how
walls.
And when shall the deed be
And over its inmates three.
wrought?
Speak, Ruth! why, what the devil is
From Sagamore Bonython's hunting
there.
flask
To fix thy gaze in that empty air? —
The fire-water burns at the lip of
Speak, Ruth ! by my soul, if I thought
Megone :
that tear,
'' Will the Sachem hear what his father
Which shames thyself and our pur-
shall ask?
pose here,
MOGG MEGONE.
Were shed for that cursed and pale-
faced dog,
Whose green scalp hangs from the
belt of Mogg,
And whose beastly soul is in Satan^s
keeping, —
This — this!" — he dashes his hand
upon
The rattling stock of his loaded gun, —
" Should send thee with him to do
thy weeping ! "
"• Father!" — the eye of Bonython
Sinks at that low, sepulchral tone,
Hollow and deep, as it were spoken
By the unmoving tongue of death, —
Or from some statue's iips had bro-
ken, —
A sound without a breath !
'' Father ! — my life I value less
Than yonder fool his gaudy dress ;
And how it ends it matters not,
By heart-break or by rifle-shot ;
But spare awhile the scoff and
threat, —
Our business is not finished yet."
" True, true, my girl, — I only meant
To draw up again the bow unbent.
Harm thee, my Ruth! I only sought
To frighten off thy gloomy thought ; —
Come, — let 's be friends ! " He seeks
to clasp
His daughter's cold, damp hand in
his.
Ruth startles from her fathers grasp.
As if each nerve and muscle felt.
Instinctively, the touch of guilt,
Through all their subtle sympathies.
He points her to the sleeping Mogg :
" What shall be done with yonder dog ?
Scamman is dead, and revenge is
thine, —
The deed is signed and the land is
mine ;
And this drunken fool is of use no
more.
Save as thy hopeful bridegroom, and
sooth,
'T were Christian mercy to finish him,
Ruth,
Now, while he lies like a beast on our
floor, —
If not -for thine, at least for his sake,
Rather than let the poor dog awake
To drain my flask, and claim as his
bride
Such a forest devil to run by his
side, —
Such a Wetuomanit as thou wouldst
make ! "
He laughs at his jest. Hush — what
is there? —
The sleeping Indian is striving to
rise.
With his knife in his hand, and
glaring eyes ! —
" Wagh ! — Mogg will have the pale-
face's hair,
For his knife is sharp, and his fin-
gers can help
The hair to pull and the skin to peel, —
Let him cry like a woman and twist
like an eel.
The great Captain Scamman must
loose his scalp!
And Ruth, when she sees it, shall
dance with Mogg."
His eyes are fixed, — but his lips draw
in,—
With a low, hoarse chuckle, and fiend-
ish grin, —
And he sinks again, like a senseless
log.
Ruth does not speak, — she does not
stir;
But she gazes down on the murderer,
Whose broken and dreamful slumbers
tell
Too much for her ear of that deed of
hell.
She sees the knife, with its slaughter
red.
And the dark fingers clenching the
bear-skin bed !
What thoughts of horror and madness
whirl
MOGG MEGONE.
Through the burning brain of that
fallen girl !
John Bonython lifts his gun to his
eye,
Its muzzle is close to the Indian's
ear, —
But he drops it again. '^ Some one
may be nigh,
And I would not that even the
wolves should hearJ'
He draws his knife from its deer-skin
belt, —
Its edge with his fingers is slowly
felt ; —
KneeHng down on one knee, by the
Indian's side.
From his throat he opens the blanket
wide;
And twice or thrice he feebly essays
A trembling hand with the knife to
raise.
" I cannot," — he mutters, — " did he
not save
My life from a cold and wintry grave.
When the storm came down from
Agioochook,
And the north-wind howled, and the
tree-tops shook, —
And I strove, in the drifts of the rush-
ing snow.
Till my knees grew weak and I could
not go,
And I felt the cold to my vitals creep,
And my heart's blood stiffen, and
pulses sleep!
I cannot strike him — Ruth Bonython!
In the Devil's name, tell me — what's
to be done ? ''
O, when the soul, once pure and
high.
Is stricken down from Virtue's sky.
As, with the downcast star of morn.
Some gems of light are with it
drawn, —
And, through its night of darkness,
play
Some tokens of its primal day, —
Some lofty feelings linger still, —
The strength to dare, the nerve to
meet
Whatever threatens with defeat
Its all-indomitable will! —
But lacks the mean of mind and
• heart.
Though eager for the gains of crime,
Oft, at his chosen place and time.
The strength to bear his evil part ;
And, shielded by his very Vice,
Escapes from Crime by Cowardice.
Ruth starts erect, — with bloodshot eye,
And lips drawn tight across her
teeth,
Showingtheirlocked embrace beneath,
he re
die!
Give me the knife ! " — The outlaw
turns.
Shuddering in heart and limb,
away, —
But, fitfully there, the hearth-fire
burns.
And he sees on the wall strange
shadows play.
A lifted arm, a tremulous blade.
Are dimly pictured in light and shade.
Plunging down in the darkness.
Hark, that cry
Again — and again — he sees it fall, —
That shadowy arm down the lighted
wall!
He hears quick footsteps — a shape
flits by —
The door on its rusted hinges
creaks : —
<' Ruth — daughter Ruth!" the out-
law shrieks.
But no sound comes back, — he is .
standing alone
By the mangled corse of Mogg
Megone!
PART II.
'T IS morning over Norridgewock, —
On tree and wigwam, wave and rock.
Bathed in the autumnal sunshine,
stirred
MOGG MEGONE.
At intervals by breeze and bird,
And wearing all the hues which glow
In heaven's own pure and perfect bow,
That' glorious picture of the air,
Which summer's light-robed angel
forms
On the dark ground of fading storms.
With pencil dipped in sunbeams
there, —
And, stretching out, on either hand.
O'er all that wide and unshorn land.
Till, weary of its gorgeousness,
The aching and the dazzled eye
Rests gladdened, on the calm blue
sky, —
Slumbers the mighty wilderness!
The oak, upon the windy hill,
Its dark green burthen upward
heaves —
The hemlock broods above its rill.
Its cone-hke foliage darker still.
Against the birch's graceful stem,
And the rough walnut-bough receives
The sun upon its crowded leaves,
Each colored like a topaz gem ;
And the tall maple wears with them
The coronal which autumn gives.
The brief, bright sign of ruin near.
The hectic of a dying year !
The hermit priest, who lingers now
On the Bald Mountain's shrubless
brow.
The gray and thunder-smitten pile
Which marks afar the Desert Isle,
While gazing on the scene below.
May half forget the dreams of home,
That nightly with his slumbers
come, —
The tranquil skies of sunny France,
The peasant's harvest song and dance.
The vines around the hillsides wreath-
ing
The soft airs midst their clusters
breathing.
The wings which dipped, the stars
which shone
Within thy bosom, blue Garonne!
And round the Abbey's shadowed
wall,
At morning spring and even-fall.
Sweet voices in the still air sing-
ing,—
The chant of many a holy hymn, —
The solemn bell of vespers ring-
ing,—
And hallowed torch-light falling dim
On pictured saint and seraphim!
For here beneath him lies unrolled.
Bathed deep in morning's flood of
gold,
A vision gorgeous as the dream
Of the beatified may seem.
When, as his Church's legends say,
Borne upward in ecstatic bliss.
The rapt enthusiast soars away
Unto a brighter world than this :
A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale, —
A moment's lifting of the veil !
Far eastward o^er the lovely bay,
Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay ;
And gently from that Indian town
The verdant hillside slopes adown,
To where the sparkling waters play
Upon the yellow sands below ;
And shooting round the winding
shores
Of narrow capes, and isles which lie
Slumbering to ocean's lullaby, —
With birchen boat and glancing oars,
The red men to their fishing go ;
While from their planting ground is
borne
The treasure of the golden corn,
By laughing girls, whose dark eyes
glow
Wild through the locks which o'er
them flow.
The wrinkled squaw, whose toil is
done,
Sits on her bear-skin in the sun.
Watching the buskers, with a smile
For each full ear which swells the
pile ;
And the old chief, who nevermore
May bend the bow or pull the oar,
Smokes gravely in his wigwam door.
Or slowly shapes, with axe of stone,
The arrow-head from flint and bone.
MOGG MEGONE.
Beneath the westward turning eye
A thousand wooded islands he, —
Gems of the waters! — with each hue
Of brightness set in ocean's blue.
Each bears aloft its tuft of trees
Touched by the pencil of the frost,
And, with the modon of each breeze,
A moment seen, — a moment
lost,—
Changing and blent, confused and
. tossed,
The brighter with the darker
crossed.
Their thousand tints of beauty glow
Down in the restless waves below.
And tremble in the sunny skies.
As if, from waving bough to bough,
Flitted the birds of paradise.
There sleep Placentia's group, — and
there
Pere Breteaux marks the hour of
prayer ;
And there, beneath the sea-worn cHff,
On which the Father's hut is
seen,
The Indian stays his rocking skiff.
And peers the hemlock-boughs be-
tween,
Half trembling, as he seeks to look
Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book.
There, gloomily against the sky
The Dark Isles rear their summits
high ;
And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare.
Lifts its gray turrets in the air, —
Seen from afar, like some stronghold
Built by the ocean kings of old ;
And, faint as smoke-wreath white and
thin.
Swells in the north vast Katahdin :
And, wandering from its marshy feet.
The broad Penobscot comes to meet
And mingle with his own bright
bay.
Slow sweep his dark and gathering
floods.
Arched over by the ancient woods,
Which Time, in those dim solitudes,
Wielding the dull axe of Decay,
Alone hath ever shorn away.
Not thus, within the woods which hide
The beauty of thy azure tide.
And with their falling timbers
block
Thy broken currents, Kennebec !
Gazes the white man on the wreck
Of the down-trodden Norridge-
wock, —
In one lone village hemmed at length,
In battle shorn of half their strength,
Turned, like the panther in his lair.
With his fast-flowing life-blood
wet,
For one last struggle of despair,
Wounded and faint, but tameless
yet!
Unreaped, upon the planting lands,
The scant, neglected harvest stands :
No shout is there, — no dance, —
no song :
The aspect of the very child
Scowls with a meaning sad and wild
Of bitterness and wrong.
The almost infant Norridgewock
Essays to lift the tomahawk ;
And plucks his father's knife away,
To mimic, in his frightful play.
The scalping of an English foe :
Wreathes on his lip a horrid smile,
Burns, like a snake's, his small eye,
while
Some bough or sapling meets his
blow.
The fisher, as he drops his line,
Starts, when he sees the hazels quiver
Along the margin of the river.
Looks up and down the rippling tide.
And grasps the firelock at his side.
For Bomazeen from Tacconock
Has sent his runners to Norridge-
wock,
With tidings that Moulton and Har-
mon of York
Far up the river have come :
They have left their boats, — they
have entered the wood.
And filled the depths of the soli-
tude
With the sound of the ranger's
drum.
MOGG MEGONE.
n
I
On the brow of a hill, which slopes to
meet
The flowing river, and bathe its
feet,—
The bare-washed rock, and the droop-
ing grass.
And the creeping vine, as the waters
pass, —
A rude and unshapely chapel stands,
Built up in that wild by unskilled
bands ;
Yet the traveller knows it a place of
prayer,
For the holy sign of the cross is
there :
And should he chance at that place
to be,
Of a Sabbath morn, or some hal-
lowed day.
When prayers are made and masses
are said.
Some for the living and some for the
dead.
Well might that traveller start to see
The tall dark forms, that take their
way
P>om the birch canoe, on the river-
shore,
And the forest paths, to that chapel
door ;
And marvel to mark the naked knees
And the dusky foreheads bending
there.
While, in coarse white vesture, over
these
In blessing or in prayer.
Stretching abroad his thin pale
hands,
Like a shrouded ghost, the Jesuit
stands.
Two form.s are now in that chapel
dim,
The Jesuit, silent and sad and pale.
Anxiously heeding some fearful
tale.
Which a stranger is telling him.
That stranger's garb is soiled and
torn,
And wet with dew and loosely worn ;
Her fair neglected hair falls down
O'er cheeks with wind and sunshine
brown ;
Yet still, in that disordered face.
The Jesuit's cautious eye can trace
Those elements of former grace
Which, half effaced, seem scarcely
less.
Even now, than perfect loveliness.
With drooping head, and voice so
low.
That scarce it meets the Jesuit's
ears, —
While through her clasped fingers
flow.
From the heart's fountain, hot and
slow.
Her penitential tears, —
She tells the story of the woe
And evil of her years.
^*0 father, bear with me; my heart
Is sick and death-like, and my
brain
Seems girdled with a fiery chain,
Whose scorching links will never
part,
And never cool again.
Bear with me while I speak, — but
turn
Away that gentle eye, the while, —
The fires of guilt more fiercely burn
Beneath its holy smile ;
For half I fancy I can see
My mother's sainted look in thee.
" My dear lost mother ! sad and
pale, ^ •
Mournfully sinking day by day.
And with a hold on life as frail
As frosted leaves, that, thin and
g^ay.
Hang feebly on their parent spray.
And tremble in the gale ;
Yet watching o'er my childishness
With patient fondness, — not the less
For all the agony which kept
Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept ;
And checking every tear and groan
MOGG MEGONE.
That haply might have waked my
own,
And bearing still, without offence,
My idle words, and petulance ;
Reproving with a tear, — and,
while
The tooth of pain was keenly preying
Upon her very heart, repaying
My brief repentance with a smile.
'' O, in her meek, forgiving eye
There was a brightness not of
mirth,
A light w^hose clear intensity
Was borrowed not of earth.
Along her cheek a deepening red
Told where the feverish hectic fed ;
And yet, each fatal token gave
To the mild beauty of her face
A newer and a dearer grace,
Unwarning of the grave.
'Twas like the hue which Autumn
gives
To yonder changed and dying leaves.
Breathed over by his frosty breath ;
Scarce can the gazer feel that this
Is but the spoiler^s treacherous kiss,
The mocking smile of Death !
" Sweet were the tales she used to
tell
When summer's eve was dear to us.
And, fading from the darkening dell.
The glory of the sunset fell
On wooded Agamenticus, —
When, sitting by our cottage wall.
The murmur of the Saco^s fall.
And the south-wind^s expiring sighs
Came, softly blending, on my ear.
With the low tones I loved to hear :
Tales of the pure, — the good, —
the wise, —
The holy men and maids of old,
In the all-sacred pages told ; —
Of Rachel, stooped at Haran's foun-
tains.
Amid her father's thirsty flock,
Beautiful to her kinsman seeming
As the bright angels of his dreaming.
On Padan-aran's holy rock ;
Of gentle Ruth, — and her who kept
Her awful vigil on the mountains,
By IsraePs virgin daughters wept ;
Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing
The song for grateful Israel meet.
While every crimson wave was bring-
ing
The spoils of Egypt at her feet ;
Of her, — Samaria's humble daughter,
Who paused to hear, beside her
well,
Lessons of love and truth, which
fell
Softly as Shiloh's flowing water ;
And saw, beneath his pilgrim guise,
The Promised One, so long foretold
By holy seer and bard of old.
Revealed before her wondering eyes !
" Slowly she faded. Day by day
Her step grew weaker in our hall,
And fainter, at each even-fall.
Her sad voice died away.
Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while,
Sat Resignation's holy smile :
And even my father checked his
tread.
And hushed his voice, beside her
bed:
Beneath the calm and sad rebuke
Of her meek eye 's imploring look.
The scowl of hate his brow forsook.
And in his stern and gloomy eye,
At times, a few unwonted tears
Wet the dark lashes, which for years
Hatred and pride had kept so dry.
" Calm as a child to slumber soothed.
As if an angePs hand had smoothed
The still, white features into rest.
Silent and cold, without a breath
To stir the drapery on her breast,
Pain, with its keen and poisoned
fang,
The horror of the mortal pang.
The suffering look her brow had
worn.
The fear, the strife, the anguish
gone, —
She slept at last in death!
MOGG MEGONE.
13
" O, tell me, father, can the dead
WaH: on the earth, and look on us,
And lay upon the living^s head
Their blessing or tlieir curse?
For, O, last night she stood by me,
As I lay beneath the woodland
tree ! "
The Jesuit crosses himself in awe, —
"Jesu! what was it my daughter
saw ? "
" She came to me last night.
The dried leaves did not feel her
tread ;
She stood by me in the wan moon-
light,
In the white robes of the dead!
Pale, and very mournfully
She bent her light form over me.
I heard no sound, I felt no breath
Breathe o'er me from that face of
death :
Its blue eyes rested on my own,
Rayless and cold as eyes of stone ;
Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze.
Something, which spoke of early
days, —
A sadness in their quiet glare,
As if love's smile were frozen there, —
Came o'er me with an icy thrill ;
O God! I feel its presence still!"
The Jesuit makes the holy sign, —
" How passed the vision, daughter
mine?"
" All dimly in the wan moonshine.
As a wreath of mist will twist and
twine,
And scatter, and melt into the light, —
So scattering, — melting on my sight,
The pale, cold vision passed ;
But those sad eyes were fixed on
mine
Mournfully to the last."
"God help thee, daughter, tell me
why
That spirit passed before thine eye!"
" Father, I know not, save it be
That deeds of mine have summoned
her
From the unbreathing sepulchre,
To leave her last rebuke with me.
Ah, woe for me! my mother died
Just at the moment when I stood
Close on the verge of womanhood,
A child in everything beside ;
And when my wild heart needed
most
Her gentle counsels, they were lost.
" My father Hved a stormy life.
Of frequent change and daily strife ;
And, — God forgive him! left his
child
To feel, like him, a freedom wild ;
To love the red man's dwelling-place.
The birch boat on his shaded
floods.
The wild excitement of the chase
Sweeping the ancient woods.
The camp-fire, blazing on the shore
Of the still lakes, the clear stream,
where
The idle fisher sets his wear.
Or angles in the shade, far more
Than that restraining awe I felt
Beneath my gentle mother's care.
When nightly at her knee I knelt,
With childhood's simple prayer.
"There came a change. The wild,
glad mood
Of unchecked freedom passed.
Amid the ancient solitude
Of unshorn grass and waving wood.
And waters glancing bright and
fast,
A softened voice was in my ear,
Sweet as those lulling sounds and
fine
The hunter lifts his head to hear.
Now far and faint, now full and
near —
The murmur of the wind-swept
pine.
A manly form was ever nigh,
A bold, free hunter, with an eye
H
MOGG MEGONE.
Whose dark, keen glance had
power to wake
Both fear and love, — to awe and
charm ;
'T was as the wizard rattlesnake,
Whose evil glances lure to harm —
Whose cold and small and gUttering
eye,
And brilliant coil, and changing dye,
Draw, step by step, the gazer near,
With drooping wing and cry of fear.
Yet powerless all to turn away,
A conscious, but a willing prey!
" Fear, doubt, thought, life itself,
erelong
Merged in one feeling deep and
strong.
Faded the world which I had known,
A poor vain shadow, cold and
waste ;
In the warm present bliss alone
Seemed I of actual life to taste.
Fond longings dimly understood.
The glow of passion's quickening
blood.
And cherished fantasies which press
The young lip with a dream^s ca-
ress, —
The heart's forecast and prophecy
Took form and life before my eye,
Seen in the glance which met my
ovvn.
Heard in the soft and pleading tone.
Felt in the arms around me cast,
And warm heart-pulses beating fast.
Ah ! scarcely yet to God above
With deeper trust, with stronger love
Has prayerful saint his meek heart
lent.
Or cloistered nun at twilight bent,
Than I, before a human shrine.
As mortal and as frail as mine.
With heart, and soul, and mind, and
form,
Knelt madly to a fellow-worm.
^' Full soon, upon that dream of sin.
An awful light came burstincj in.
The shrine was cold, at which I knelt.
The idol of that shrine was gone ;
A humbled thing of shame and guilt.
Outcast, and spurned and lone.
Wrapt in the shadows of my crime.
With withering heart and burning
brain.
And tears that fell like fiery rain,
I passed a fearful time.
^' There came a voice — it checked
the tear —
In heart and soul it wrought a
change ; —
My father's voice was in my ear ;
It whispered of revenge!
A new and fiercer feeling swept
All lingering tenderness away ;
And tiger passions, which had slept
In childhood's better day.
Unknown, unfelt, arose at length
In all their own demoniac strength.
" A youthful warrior of the wild.
By words deceived, by smiles be-
guiled,
Of crime the cheated instrument,
Upon our fatal errands went.
Through camp and town and
wilderness
He tracked his victim ; and, at last.
Just when the tide of hate had
passed.
And milder thoughts came warm and
fast.
Exulting, at my feet he cast
The bloody token of success.
" O God ! with what an awful power
I saw the buried past uprise,
And gather, in a single hour,
Its ghost-like memories!
And then I felt — alas ! too late —
That underneath the mask of hate.
That shame and guilt and wrong had
thrown
O'er feelings which they might not
own.
The heart's wild love had known
no change ;
MOGG MEGONE.
15
And still, that deep and hidden love,
With its first fondness, wept above
The victim of its own revenge!
There lay the fearful scalp, and there
The blood was on its pale brown
hair !
I thought not of the victim's scorn,
I thought not of his baleful guile.
My deadly wrong, my outcast name.
The characters of sin and shame
On heart and forehead drawn ;
I only saw that victim's smile, —
The still, green places where we
met, —
The moonlit branches, dewy wet ;
I only felt, I only heard
The greeting and the parting word, —
The smile, — the embrace, — the tone,
which made
An Eden of the forest shade.
" And oh, with what a loathing eye,
With what a deadly hate, and
deep,
I saw that Indian murderer lie
Before me, in his drunken sleep!
What though for me the deed was
done.
And words of mine had sped him on !
Yet when he murmured, as he slept,
The horrors of that deed of blood.
The tide of utter madness swept
O'er brain and bosom, like a flood.
And, father, with this hand of mine — ""
^' Ha! what didst thou? " the Jesuit
cries.
Shuddering, as smitten with sudden
pain,
.nd si-
ll is eyes.
With the other he makes the holy
sign.
" — I smote him as I \vould a worm ; —
With heart as steeled, with nerves as
firm :
He never woke again I "
" Woman of sin and blood and shame.
Speak, — I would know that victim's
name."
''Eather,'' she gasped, ^'a chieftain,
. known
As Saco's Sachem, — MoGG Me-
GONE ! "
Pale priest ! What proud and lofty
dreams.
What keen desires, what cherished
schemes.
What hopes, that time may not recall,
Are darkened by that chieftain's fall !
Was he not pledged, by cross and vow,
To lift the hatchet of his sire.
And, round his own, the Church's foe.
To light the avenging fire ?
Who now the Tarrantine sliall wake.
For thine and for the Church's sake ?
Who summon to the scene
Of conquest and unsparing strife.
And vengeance dearer than his life,
The fiery-souled Castine ?
Three backward steps the Jesuit
takes, —
His long, thin frame as ague shakes ;
And loathing hate is in his eye.
As from his lips these words of fear
Fall hoarsely on the maiden's ear, —
" The soul that sinneth shall surely
die ! "
She stands, as stands the stricken
deer.
Checked midway in the fearful chase,
When bursts, upon his eye and ear.
The gaunt, gray robber, baying near,
Between him and his hiding-place;
While still behind, with yell and blow.
Sweeps, like a storm, the coming foe.
'^ Save me, O holy man ! " — her cry
Fills all the void, as if a tongue,
Unseen, from rib and rafter hung.
Thrilling with mortal agony ;
Her hands are clasping the Jesuit's
knee,
And her eye looks fearfully into his
own ; —
" Off, woman of sin ! — nay, touch not
me
With those fingers of blood ; — be-
gone I "
i6
MOGG MEGONE.
With a gesture of horror, he spurns
the form
That writhes at his feet like a trodden
worm.
Ever thus the spirit must,
Guilty in the sight of Heaven,
With a keener woe be riven.
For its weak and sinful trust
In the strength of human dust ;
And its anguish thrill afresh.
For each vain reliance given
To the failino^ arm of flesh.
PART III.
Ah, weary Priest ! — with pale hands
pressed
On thy throbbing brow of pain.
Baffled in thy life-long quest,
Overworn with toiling vain.
How ill thy troubled musings fit
The holy quiet of a breast
With the Dove of Peace at rest,
Sweetly brooding over it.
Thoughts are thine which have no part
With the meek and pure of heart.
Undisturbed by outward things.
Resting in the heavenly shade.
By the overspreading wings
Of the Blessed Spirit made.
Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong
Sweep thy heated brain along, —
Fading hopes, for whose success
It were sin to breathe a prayer ; —
Schemes which Heaven may never
bless, —
Fears which darken to despair.
Hoary priest ! thy dream is done
Of a hundred red tribes won
To the pale of Holy Church ;
And the heretic overthrown,
And his name no longer known.
And thy weary brethren turning,
Joyful from their years of mourning,
'Twixt the altar and the porch.
Hark ! w^hat sudden sound is heard
In the w^ood and in the sky.
Shriller than the scream of bird, —
Than the trumpet's clang more high !
Every wolf-cave of the hills, —
Forest arch and mountain gorge,
Rock and dell, and river verge, —
With an answering echo thrills.
Well does the Jesuit know that cry.
Which summons the Norridgewock to
die.
And tells that the foe of his flock is
nigh.
He listens, and hears the rangers come.
With loud hurrah, and jar of drum.
And hurrying feet (for the chase is
hot).
And the short, sharp sound of rifle
shot.
And taunt and menace, — answered
well
By the Indians' mocking cry and
yell, —
The bark of dogs, — the squaw's mad
scream, —
The dash of paddles along the
stream, —
The whistle of shot as it cuts the leaves
Of the maples around the church's
eaves, —
And the gride of hatchets, fiercely
thrown.
On wigwam-log and tree and stone.
Black with the grime of paint and dust.
Spotted and streaked with human
gore,
A grim and naked head is thrust
Within the chapel-door.
"Ha — Bomazeen ! — In God's name
say.
What mean these sounds of bloody
fray?"
Silent, the Indian points his hand
To where across the echoing glen
Sweep Harmon's dreaded ranger-band.
And Moulton with his men.
"Where are thy warriors, Bomazeen?
WHiere are De Rouville and Castine,
And where the braves of Sawga's
queen ? "
" Let my father find the wdnter snow
Which the sun drank up long moons
ago!
MOGG MEGONE.
17
Under the falls of Tacconock,
The wolves are eating the Norridge-
wock ;
Castine with his wives lies closely
hid
Like a fox in the woods of Pemaquid!
On Sawga's banks the man of war
Sits in his wigwam like a squaw, —
Squando has fled, and Mogg Megone,
Struck by the knife of Sagamore John,
Lies stiff and stark and cold as a stone."
Fearfully over the Jesuit's face,
Of a thousand thoughts, trace after
trace.
Like swift cloud-shadows, each other
chase.
One instant, his fingers grasp his knife.
For a last vain struggle for cherished
life,—
The next, he hurls the blade away.
And kneels at his altars foot to pray ;
Over his beads his fingers stray.
And he kisses the cross, and calls aloud
Qn the Virgin and her Son ;
For terrible thoughts his memory
crowd
Of evil seen and done, —
Of scalps brought home by his savage
flock
From Casco and Sawga and Sagada-
hock,
In the Church's service won.
No shrift the gloomy savage brooks,
As scowling on the priest he looks :
"Cowesass — cowesass — tawhichwes-
saseen ?
Let my father look upon Bomazeen, —
My father's heart is the heart of a
squaw.
But mine is so hard that it does not
thaw :
Let my father ask his God to make
A dance and a feast for a great saga-
more.
When he paddles across the western
lake.
With his dogs and his squaws to the
spirit's shore,
c
Cowesass — cowesass — tawhich wes-
saseen?
Let my father die like Bomazeen ! "
Through the chapel's narrow doors.
And through each window in the
walls.
Round the priest and warrior pours
The deadly shower of English
balls.
Low on his cross the Jesuit falls ;
While at his side the Norridgewock,
With failing breath, essays to mock
And menace yet the hated foe, —
Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro
Exultingly before their eyes, —
Till, cleft and torn by shot and blow,'
Defiant still, he dies.
'' So fare all eaters of the frog !
Death to the Babylonish dog!
Down with the beast of Rome!"
With shouts like these, around the
dead,
Unconscious on his bloody bed.
The rangers crowding come.
Brave men! the dead priest cannot
hear
The unfeeling taunt, — the brutal
jeer ; —
Spurn — for he sees ye not — in
wrath.
The symbol of your Saviour's death ;
Tear from his death -grasp, in your
zeal,
And trample, as a thing accursed.
The cross he cherished in the dust :
The dead man cannot feel !
Brutal alike in deed and word.
With callous heart and hand of
strife,
How like a fiend may man be made.
Plying the foul and monstrous trade
Whose harvest-field is human life,
WHiose sickle is the reeking sword!
(2uenching, with reckless hand in
blood.
Sparks kindled by the breath of
God ;
i8
MOGG MEGONE.
Urging the deathless soul, unshriven,
Of open guilt or secret sin.
Before the bar of that pure Heaven
The holy only enter in !
O, by the widow's sore distress,
The orphan's wailing wretchedness,
By Virtue struggling in the accursed
Embraces of polluting Lust,
By the fell discord of the Pit,
And the pained souls that people it.
And by the blessed peace which fills
The Paradise of God forever,
Resting on all its holy hills,
And flowing with its crystal
river, —
Let Christian hands no longer bear
In triumph on his crimson car
The foul and idol god of war ;
No more the purple wreaths prepare
To bind amid his snaky hair ;
Nor Christian bards his glories tell.
Nor Christian tongues his praises
swell.
Through the gun-smoke wreathing
wiiite,
Glimpses on the soldiers' sight
A thing of human shape I ween,
Eor a moment only seen.
With its loose hair backward stream-
ing,
And its eyeballs madly gleaming,
Shrieking, like a soul in pain.
From the world of light and
breath.
Hurrying to its place again,
Spectre-like it vanisheth !
Wretched girl ! one eye alone
Notes the way which thou hast gone.
That great Eye, which slumbers
never.
Watching o'er a lost world ever.
Tracks thee over vale and mountain.
By the gushing forest-fountain.
Plucking from the vine its fruit,
Searching for the ground-nut's root.
Peering in the she-woli"s den.
Wading through the marshy fen.
Basks beside the sunny brake,
Coiling in his slimy bed.
Smooth and cold against thy tread, —
Purposeless, thy mazy way
Threading through the lingering
day.
And at night securely sleeping
Where the dogwood's dews are weep-
ing!
Still, though earth and man discard
thee.
Doth thy Heavenly Father guard
thee : »
He who spared the guilty Cain,
Even when a brother's blood.
Crying in the ear of God,
Gave the earth its primal stain, —
He whose mercy ever liveth,
Wlio repenting guilt forgiveth,
And the broken heart receiveth, —
Wanderer of the wilderness.
Haunted, guilty, crazed, and wild,
He regardeth thy distress.
And careth for his sinful child !
'T is spring-time on the eastern hills!
Like torrents gush the summer rills ;
Through winter's moss and dry dead
leaves
The bladed grass revives and lives,
Pushes the mouldering w^aste away,
And glimpses to the April day.
In kindly shower and sunshine bud
The branches of the dull gray wood ;
Out from its sunned and sheltered
nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks ;
The southwest wind is warmly
blowing.
And odors from the springing grass,
The pine-tree and the sassafras,
Are with it on its errands going.
A band is marching through the
wood
Where rolls the Kennebec his
flood, —
The warriors of the wilderness.
Painted, and in their battle dress ;
MOGG MEGOXE.
19
And with them one whose bearded
cheek,
And white and wrinkled brow, be-
speak
A wanderer from the shores of
France.
A few long locks of scattering snow
I]eneath a battered morion flow,
And from the rivets of the vest
Which girds in steel his ample
breast,
The slanted sunbeams glance.
In the harsh outlines of his face
Passion and sin have left their trace ;
Yet, save worn brow and thin gray
hair.
No signs of w^eary age are there.
His step is firm, his eye is keen.
Nor years in broil and battle spent,
Nor toil, nor wounds, nor pain have
bent
The lordly frame of old Castine.
No purpose now of strife and blood
Urges the hoary veteran on :
The fire of conquest, and the mood
Of chivalry have gone.
A mournful task is his, — to lay
Within the earth the bones of
those
Who perished in that fearful day.
When Norridgewock became the
prey
Of all unsparing foes.
Sadly and still, dark thoughts be-
tween,
Of coming vengeance mused Cas-
tine,
Of the fallen chieftain Bomazeen,
Who bade for him the Norridge-
wock^,
Dig up their buried tomahawks
For firm defence or swift attack ;
And him whose friendship formed
the tie
Which held the stern self-exile
back
From lapsing into savagery ;
Whose garb and tone and kindly
o[lance
Recalled a younger, happier day.
And prompted memory's fond
essay,
To bridge the mighty waste which
lay
Between his wild home and that
gray.
Tall chateau of his native France,
Whose chapel bell, with far-heard
din
Ushered his birth-hour gayly in,
And counted with its solemn toll
The masses for his fathers soul.
Hark! from the foremost of the
band
Suddenly bursts the Indian yell ;
For now on the very spot they stand
Where the Norridgewocks fighting
fell.
No wigwam smoke is curling there ;
The very earth is scorched and
bare :
And they pause and listen to catch a
sound
Of breathing life, — but there
comes not one.
Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's
bound ;
But here and there, on the blackened
ground.
White bones are glistening in the
sun.
And wdiere the house of prayer
arose.
And the holy hymn, at daylight's
close.
And the aged priest stood up to
bless
The children of the wilderness,
There is naught save ashes sodden
and dank ;
And the birchen boats of the Nor-
ridgewock,
Tethered to tree and stump and
rock,
Rotting along the river bank!
Blessed Mary! who is she
Leaning against that maple-tree.'*
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
The sun upon her face burns hot,
But the fixed eyelid moveth not ;
The squirrel's chirp is shrill and
clear
From the dry bough above her ear ;
Dashing from rock and root its
spray,
Close at her feet the river rushes ;
The blackbird's wing against her
brushes.
And sweetly through the hazel-
bushes
The robin's mellow music gushes ; —
God save her! will she sleep alvvay?
Castine hath bent him over the
sleeper :
'' Wake, daughter, — wake ! " — but
she stirs no limb :
The eye that looks on him is fixed
and dim ;
And the sleep she is sleeping shall be
no deeper,
Until the angePs oath is said,
And the final blast of the trump goes
forth
To the graves of the sea and the
graves of earth .
Ruth Bonython is dead!
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK, 1848.
We had been wandering for many days
Through the rough northern country.
We had seen
The sunset, with its bars of purple
cloud,
Like a new heaven, shine upward from
the lake
Of Winnepiseogee ; and had felt
The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy
isles
Which stoop their summer beauty to
the lips
Of the bright waters. We had checked
our steeds.
Silent with wonder, where the moun-
tain wall
Is piled to heaven ; and, through the
narrow rift
Of the vast rocks, against whose
rugged feet
Beats the mad torrent with perpetual
roar.
Where noonday is as twilight, and the
wind
Comes burdened with the everlasting
moan
Of forests and of far-off waterfalls.
We had looked upward where the
summer sky,
Tasselled with clouds light-woven by
the sun,
Sprung its blue arch above the abut-
ting crags
O'er-roofing the vast portal of the
land
Beyond the wall of mountains. We
had passed
The high source of the Saco ; and be-
wildered
In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal
Hills,
Had heard above us, like a voice in
the cloud.
The horn of Fabyan sounding; and
atop
Of old Agioochook had seen the moun-
tains
Piled to the northward, shagged with
wood, and thick
As meadow mole-hills, — the far sea of
Casco,
A white gleam on the horizon of the
east ;
Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods
and hills ;
Moosehillock's mountain range, and
Kearsarge
Liftin^: his Titan forehead to the sun !
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
And we had rested underneath the
oaks
Shadowing the bank, whose grassy
spires are shaken
By the perpetual beating of the falls
Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had
tracked
The winding Pemigewasset, overhung
By beechen shadows, whitening down
its rocks,
Or lazily gliding through its intervals,
From waving rye-fields sending up
the gleam
Of sunlit waters. We had seen the
pines.
Like a great Indian camp-fire ; and its
beams
At midnight spanning with a bridge of
silver
The Merrimack by Uncanoonuc's falls.
There were five souls of us whom
travePs chance
Had thrown together in these wild
north hills : —
A city lawyer, for a month escaping
From his dull office, where the weary
eye
Saw only hot brick walls and close
thronged streets, —
Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see
Life's sunniest side, and with a heart
to take
Its chances all as godsends ; and his
brother.
Pale from long pulpit studies, yet re-
taining
The warmth and freshness of a genial
heart,
Whose mirror of the beautiful and true.
In Man and Nature, was as yet un-
dimmed
By dust of theologic strife, or breath
Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore ;
Like a clear crystal calm of water,
taking
The hue and image of o'erleaning
flowers,
Sweet human faces, white clouds of
the noon,
Shmt starlight glimpses through the
dewy leaves.
And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in
truth, a study.
To mark his spirit, alternating between
A decent and professional gravity
And an irreverent mirthfulness, which
often
Laughed in the face of his divinity,
Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite
unshrined
The oracle, and for the pattern priest
Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious
merchant.
To whom the soiled sheet found in
Crawford^s inn,
Giving the latest news of city stocks
And sales of cotton, had a deeper
meaning
Than the great presence of the awful
mountains
Glorified by the sunset; — and his
daughter
A delicate flower on whom had blown
too long
Those evil winds, which, sweeping
from the ice
And winnowing the fogs of Labrador,
Shed their cold blight round Massa-
chusetts Bay,
With the same breath which stirs
Springes opening leaves
And lifts her half-formed flower-bell
on its stem.
Poisoning our seaside atmosphere.
It chanced
That as we turned upon our homeward
way,
A drear northeastern storm came
howling up
The valley of the Saco ; and that girl
Who had stood with us upon Mount
Washington,
Her brown locks ruffled by the wind
which whirled
In gusts around its sharp cold pin-
nacle,
THE ]]RIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
Who had joined our gay trout-fishing
in the streams
Which lave that giant's feet ; whose
hiugh was heard
Like a bird's carol on the sunrise
breeze
Which swelled our sail amidst the
lake's green islands,
Shrank from its harsh, chill breath,
and visibly drooped
Like a flower in the frost. So, in that
quiet inn
Which looks from Conway on the
mountains piled
Heavily against the horizon of the
north,
Like summer thunder-clouds, we made
our home :
And while the mist hung over dripping
hills.
And the cold wind-driven rain-drops
all day long
Beat their sad music upon roof and
pane.
We strove to cheer our gentle invalid.
The lawyer in the pauses of the storm
Went angling down the Saco, and,
returning,
Recounted his adventures and mis-
haps ;
Gave us the history of his scaly clients.
Mingling with ludicrous yet apt cita-
tions
Of barbarous law Latin, passages
From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet
and fresh
As the flower-skirted streams of Staf-
fordshire,
Where, under aged trees, the south-
west wind
Of soft June mornings fanned the thin,
white hair
Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be
told.
Our youthful candidate forsook his
sermons.
His commentaries, articles and creeds,
For the fair page of human loveli-
ness, —
The missal of young hearts, whose
sacred text,
Is music, its illumining sweet smiles.
He sang the songs she loved ; and in
his low,
Deep, earnest voice, recited many a
page
Of poetry, — the holiest, tenderest
lines
Of the sad bard of Olney, — the sweet
songs,
Simple and beautiful as Truth and
Nature,
Of him whose w^hitencd locks on
Rydal Mount
Are lifted yet by morning breezes
blowing
From the green hills, immortal in his
lays.
And for myself, obedient to her wish,
I searched our landlord's proffered
library, —
A well-thumbed Bunyan, wdth its
nice wood pictures
Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike
them, —
Watts' unmelodious psalms, — Astrol-
ogy's
Last home, a musty pile of almanacs,
And an old chronicle of border wars
And Indian history. And, as I read
A story of the marriage of the Chief
Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo,
Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt
In the old time upon the Merrimack,
Our fair one, in the playful exercise
Of her prerogative, — the right di-
vine
Of youth and beauty, — bade us
versify
The legend, and with ready pencil
sketched
Its plan and outlines, laughingly as-
signing
To each his part, and barring our
excuses
With absolute will. So, like the
cavaliers
Whose voices still are heard in the
Romance
THE BRIDAL OF TENNACOOK.
23
Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the
banks
Of Arno, with soft tales of love
beguiling
The ear of languid beauty, plague-
exiled
From stately Florence, we rehearsed
our rhymes
To their fair auditor, and shared by
turns
Mer kind approval and her playful
censure.
It may be that these fragments owe
alone
To the fair setting of their circum-
stances, —
The associations of time, scene, and
audience, —
Their place amid the pictures which
fill up
The chambers of my memory. Yet
I trust
That some, who sigh, while wander-
ing in thought,
Pilgrims of Romance o^er the olden
world,
That our broad land, — our sea-like
lakes and mountains
Piled to the clouds, — our rivers over-
hung
By forests which have known no other
change
For ages, than the budding and the
fall
Of leaves, — our valleys loveher than
those
Which the old poets sang of, — should
but figure
On the apocryphal chart of specu-
lation
As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with
the privileges.
Rights, and appurtenances, which
make up
A Yankee Paradise, — unsung, un-
known.
To beautiful tradition ; even their
names.
Whose melody yet lingers like the
last
Vibration of the red man's requiem,
Exchanged for syllables significant
Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look
kindly
Upon this effort to call up the ghost
Of our dim Past, and listen with
pleased ear
To the responses of the questioned
Shade.
I. THE MERRIMACK.
O CHILD of that white-crested moun-
tain whose springs
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-
eagle's wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands
thy wild waters shine.
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing
through the dwarf pine.
From that cloud-curtained cradle so
cold and so lone.
From the arms of that wintry-locked
mother of stone,
By hills hung with forests, through
vales wide and free,
The mountain-born brightness glanced
down to the sea !
No bridge arched thy water save that
where the trees
Stretched their long arms above thee
and kissed in the breeze :
No sound save the lapse of the waves
on thy shores.
The plunging of otters, the light dip
of oars.
Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amos-
keag\s fall
Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately
and tall.
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and
unshorn.
And the hills of Pentucket were tas-
selled with corn.
24
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
But thy Pennacook valley was fairer
than these,
And greener its grasses and taller its
trees,
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest
had rung.
Or the mower his scythe in the mead-
ows had swung.
In their sheltered repose looking out
from the wood
The bark-builded wigwams of Penna-
cook stood ;
There glided the corn-dance, the
council-fire shone,
And against the red war-post the
hatchet was thrown.
There the old smoked in silence their
pipes, and the young
To the pike and the white-perch their
baited lines flung ;
There the boy shaped his arrows, and
there the shy maid
Wove her many-hued baskets and
bright wampum braid.
O Stream of the Mountains ! if answer
of thine
Could rise from thy waters to question
of mine,
Methinks through the din of thy
thronged banks a moan
Of sorrow would swell for the days
which have gone.
Not for thee the dull jar of the loom
and the wheel,
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of
steel ;
But that old voice of waters, of bird
and of breeze,
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling
of trees !
II. THE BASHABA.
Lift we the twilight curtains of the
Past,
And, turning from familiar sight and
sound,
Sadly and full of reverence let us
cast
A glance upon Tradition^s shadowy
ground.
Led by the few pale lights wliich,
glimmering round
That dim, strange land of Eld,
seem dying fast ;
And that which history gives not to
the eye.
The faded coloring of Time's tapestry,
Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped
brush supply.
Roof of bark and w^alls of pine,
Through whose chinks the sunbeams
shine.
Tracing many a golden line
On the ample floor within ;
Where upon that earth-floor stark.
Lay the gaudy mats of bark,
With the beards hide, rough and dark,
And the red-deer's skin.
Window-tracery, small and slight.
Woven of the willow white.
Lent a dimly checkered light,
And the night-stars glimmered
down.
Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke,
Slowly through an opening broke,
In the low roof, ribbed with oak.
Sheathed with hemlock brown.
Gloomed behind the changeless shade.
By the solemn pine-wood made;
Through the rugged palisade,
In the open foreground planted,
Glimpses came of rowers rowing,
Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blow-
ing.
Steel-like gleams of water flowing.
In the sunlight slanted.
Here the mighty Bashaba,
Held his long-unquestioned sway.
From the White Hills, far away.
To the great sea's sounding shores
Chief of chiefs, his regal word
All the river Sachems heard,
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
25
At his call the war-dance stirred,
Or was still once more.
There his spoils of chase and war,
Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw,
Panther's skin and eagle's claw,
Lay beside his axe and bow;
And, adown the roof-pole hung.
Loosely on a snake-skin strung.
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
Grimly to and fro.
Nightly down the river going,
Swifter was the hunter's rowing.
When he saw that lodge-iire glowing
O'er the waters still and red ;
And the squaw's dark eye burned
brighter.
And she drew her blanket tighter.
As, with quicker step and lighter.
From that door she fled.
For that chief had magic skill.
And a Panisee's dark will.
Over powers of good and ill,
Powers which bless and powers
which ban, —
Wizard lord of Pennacook,
Chiefs upon their war-path shook.
When they met the steady look
Of that wise dark man.
Tales of him the gray squaw told,
When the winter night-wind cold
Pierced her blanket's thickest fold.
And the fire burned low and small,
Till the very child abed.
Drew its bear-skin over head.
Shrinking from the pale lights shed
On the trembling wall.
All the subtle spirits hiding
Under earth or wave, abiding
In the caverned rock, or riding
Misty clouds or morning breeze ;
Every dark intelligence,
Secret soul, and influence
Of all things which outward sense
Feels, or hears, or sees, —
These the wizard's skill confessed.
At his bidding banned or blessed,
Stormful woke or lulled to rest
Wind and cloud, and fire and flood ;
Burned for him the drifted snow.
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow.
And the leaves of summer grow
Over winter's wood!
Not untrue that tale of old !
Now, as then, the wise and bold
All the powers of Nature hold
Subject to their kingly will ;
From the wandering crowds ashore,
Treading life's wild waters o'er.
As upon a marble floor.
Moves the strong man still.
Still, to such, life's elements
With their sterner laws dispense.
And the chain of consequence
Broken in their pathway lies ;
Time and change their vassals mak-
Flowers from icy pillows waking.
Tresses of the sunrise shaking
Over midnight skies.
Still, to earnest souls, the sun
Rests on towered Gibeon,
And the moon of Ajalon
Lights the battle-grounds of life;
To his aid the strong reverses
Hidden powers and giant forces.
And the high stars, in their courses,
Minde in his strife!
III. THE DAUGHTER.
The soot-black brows of men, — the
yell
if wo:
bed,—
The tinkling charm of ring and
shell, —
The Powah whispering o'er the
dead ! —
All these the Sachem's home had
knpwn,
26
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
When, on her journey long and
wild
To the dim World of Souls, alone,
In her young beauty passed the mother
of his child.
Three bow-shots from the Sachem's
dwelling
They laid her in the walnut shade.
Where a green hillock gently swell-
ing
Her fitting mound of burial made.
There trailed the vine in summer
hours,
The tree-perched squirrel dropped
his shell, —
On velvet moss and pale-hued
flowers,
Woven with leaf and spray, the soft-
ened sunshine fell !
The Indian's heart is hard and
cold, —
It closes darkly o'er its care.
And formed in Nature's sternest
mould.
Is slow to feel, and strong to bear.
The war-paint on the Sachem's face,
Unwet with tears, shone fierce
and red.
And, still in battle or in chase,
Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped be-
neath his foremost tread.
Yet when her name was heard no
more,
And when the robe her mother
gave.
And small, light moccasin she wore,
Had slowly wasted on her grave.
Unmarked of him the dark maids
sped
Their sunset dance and moonlit
play ;
No other shared his lonely bed.
No other fair young head upon his
bosom lay.
A lone, stern man. Yet, as some-
times
The tempest-smitten tree receives
From one small root the sap which
climbs
Its topmost spray and crowning
leaves.
So from his child the Sachem drew
A life of Love and Hope, and felt
His cold and rugged nature through
The softness and the warmth of her
young being melt.
A laugh which in the woodland rang
Bemocking April's gladdest
bird, —
A light and graceful form which
sprang
To meet him when his step was
heard, —
Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark.
Small fingers stringing bead and
shell
Or weaving mats of bright-hued
bark, —
With these the household-god had
graced his wigwam well.
Child of the forest ! — strong and
free,
Slight-robed, with loosely flow-
ing hair,
She swam the lake or climbed the
tree,
Or struck the flying bird in air.
O'er the heaped driifts of winter's
moon
Her snow-shoes tracked the hun-
ter's way ;
And dazzling in the summer noon
The blade of her light oar threw off
its shower of spray !
Unknown to her the rigid rule.
The dull restraint, the chiding
frown,
The weary torture of the school.
The taming of wild nature down.
Her only lore, the legends told
Around the hunter's fire at night ;
Stars rose and set, and seasons
rolled,
THE BRIDAL OF TENNACOOK.
27
Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell,
unquestioned in her sight.
Unknown to her the subtle skill
With which the artist-eye can
trace
In rock and tree and lake and hill
The outlines of divinest grace ;
Unknown the fine souPs keen unrest,
Which sees, admires, yet yearns
alway ;
Too closely on her mother^s breast
To note her smiles of love the child
of Nature lay!
It is enough for such to be
Of common, natural things apart,
To feel, with bird and stream and tree.
The pulses of the same great heart ;
But we, from Nature long exiled
In our cold homes of Art and
Thought,
Grieve like the stranger-tended
child.
Which seeks its mother's arms, and
sees but feels them not.
The garden rose may richly bloom
In cultured soil and genial air.
To cloud the light of Fashion's room
Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair ;
In lonelier grace, to sun and dew
The sweetbrier on the hillside
shows
Its single leaf and fainter hue.
Untrained and wildly free, yet still a
sister rose !
Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo
Their mingling shades of joy and
The instincts of her nature threw, —
The savage was a woman still.
Midst outlines dim of maiden
schemes.
Heart-colored prophecies of life.
Rose on the ground of her young
dreams
The Hght of a new home, — the lover
and the wife.
IV. THE WEDDING.
Cool and dark fell the autumn night,
But the Ikishaba's wigwam glowed
with light,
For down from its roof by green
withes hung
Plaring and smoking the pine-knots
swung.
And along the river great wood-fires
Shot into the night their long red
spires.
Showing behind the tall, dark wood,
Flashing before on the sweeping flood.
In the changeful wind, with shimmer
and shade.
Now high, now low, that firelight
played.
On tree-leaves wet with evening dews,
On gliding water and still canoes.
The trapper that night on Turee's
brook.
And the weary fisher on Contoocook,
Saw over the marshes and through
the pine.
And down on the river the dance-
lights shine.
For the Saugus Sachem had come to
woo
The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo,
And laid at her father's feet that night
His softest furs and wampum white.
From the Crystal Hills to the fiir
southeast
The river Sagamores came to the feast;
And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds
shook,
Sat down on the mats of Pennacook.
They came from Sunapee's shore of
rock.
From the snowy sources of Snooga-
nock.
28
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
And from rough Coos whose thick
woods shake
Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake.
From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass,
Wild as his home, came Chepewass ;
And the Keenomps of the hills which
throw
Their shade on the Smile of INIanito.
With pipes of peace and bows
unstrung,
Glowing with paint came old and
young,
In wampum and furs and feathers
arrayed
To the dance and feast the Bashaba
made.
Bird of the air and beast of the field,
All which the woods and waters
yield,
On dishes of birch and hemlock
piled,
Garnished and graced that banquet
wild.
Steaks of the brown bear fot and large
From the rocky slopes of the Kear-
sarge ;
Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook,
And salmon speared in the Contoo-
cook;
Squirrels which fed where nuts fell
thick
In the gravelly bed of the Otternic,
And small wild-hens in reed-snares
caught
From the banks of Sondagardee
brought ;
Pike and perch from the Suncook
taken, -y
Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills
shaken.
Cranberries picked in the Squamscot
bog,
And grapes from the vines of Piscata-
quog :
And, drawn from that great stone vase
which stands
In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,
Garnished with spoons of shell and
horn,
Stood the birchen dishes of smoking
corn.
Thus bird of the air and beast of the
field.
All which the woods and the waters
yield,
Furnished in that olden day
The bridal feast of the Bashaba.
And merrily when that feast was done
On the fire-lit green the dance begun.
With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper
hum
Of old men beating the Indian drum.
Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks
flowing.
And red arms tossing and black eyes
glowing.
Now in the light and now in the shade
Around the fires the dancers played.
The step was quicker, the song more
shrill.
And the beat of the small drums
louder still
Whenever within the circle drew
The Saugus Sachem and Weetamoo.
The moons of forty winters had shed
Their snow upon that chieftain's head.
And toil and care, and battle's chance
Had seamed his hard dark counte-
A fawn beside the bison grim, —
Why turns the bride's fond eye on him.
In whose cold look is naught beside
The triumph of a sullen pride ?
Ask why the graceful grape entwines
The rough oak with her arm of vines ;
And wliy the gray rock's rugged cheek
The soft lips of the mosses seek :
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
29
Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems
Their nigged prop. As o'er some
To harmonize her wide extremes,
granite wall
Linking the stronger with the weak,
Soft vine-leaves open to the mois-
The haughty with the soft and meek!
tening dew
And warm bright sun, the love of
that young wife
V. THE NEW HOME.
Found on a hard cold breast the dew
and warmth of life.
A WILD and broken landscape, spiked
with firs.
The steep bleak hills, the melancholy
Roughening the bleak horizon's
shore,
northern edge.
The long dead level of the marsh
Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black
between.
hemlock spurs
A coloring of unreal beauty wore
And sharp, gray splinters ofthe wind-
Through the soft golden mist of
swept ledge
young love seen.
Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bris-
For o'er those hills and from that
tling rose.
dreary plain,
Where the cold rim of the sky sunk
Nightly she welcomed home her hun-
down upon the snows.
ter chief again.
And eastward cold, wide marshes
No warmth of heart, no passionate
stretched away.
burst of feeling
Dull, dreary flats without a bush or
Repaid her welcoming smile and
tree.
parting kiss.
O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where
No fond and playful dalliance half
twice a day
concealing.
Gurgled the waters of the moon-
Under the guise of mirth, its ten-
struck sea ;
derness ;
And faint with distance came the
But, in their stead, the warrior's
stifled roar.
settled pride.
The melancholy lapse of waves on
And vanity's pleased smile with hom-
that low shore.
age satisfied.
No cheerful village with its mingling
Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone
smokes,
Sat on his mat and slumbered at his
No laugh of children wrestling in
side ;
the snow.
That he whose fame to her young ear
No camp-fire blazing through the hill-
had flown
side oaks,
Now looked upon her proudly as
No fishers kneeling on the ice be-
his bride ;
low ;
That he whose name the Mohawk
Yet midst all desolate things of sound
trembling heard
and view,
Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly
Through the long winter moons smiled
look or word.
dark-eyed Weetamoo.
For she had learned the maxims of
Her heart had found a home; and
her race,
freshly all
Which teach the woman to become
Its beautiful affections overgrew
a slave
30
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
And feel herself the pardonless dis-
grace
Of love's fond weakness in the wise
and brave, —
The scandal and the shame which
they incur,
Who give to woman all which man
requires of her.
So passed the winter moons. The
sun at last
Broke link by link the frost chain
of tile rills,
And the warm breathings of the south-
west passed
Over the hoar rime of the Saugus
hills;
The gray and desolate marsh grew
green once more,
And the birch-tree\s tremulous shade
fell round the Sachem's door.
Then from far Pennacook swift run-
ners came,
With gift and greeting for the Sau-
gus chief;
Beseeching him in the great Sachem's
name.
That, with the coming of the flower
and leaf,
The song of birds, the warm breeze
and the rain.
Young Weetamoo might greet her
lonely sire again.
And Winnepurkit called his chiefs to-
gether.
And a grave council in his wigwam
met.
Solemn and brief in words, consider-
ing whether
The rigid rules of forest etiquette
Permitted Weetamoo once more to
look
Upon her father's face and green-
banked Pennacook.
With interludes of pipe-smoke and
strono: water,
The forest sages pondered, and at
length.
Concluded in a body to escort her
Up to her father's home of pride
and strength.
Impressing thus on Pennacook a
sense
Of Winnepurkit's power and regal
consequence.
So through old woods which Au-kee-
tamit's hand,
A soft and many-shaded greenness
lent.
Over high breezy hills, and meadow
land
Yellow with flowers, the wild pro-
cession went.
Till, rolling down its wooded banks
between,
A broad, clear mountain stream, the
Merrimack was seen.
The hunter leaning on his bow un-
drawn.
The fisher lounging on the pebbled
shores.
Squaws in the clearing dropping the
seed-corn.
Young children peering through
the wigwam doors,
Saw with delight, surrounded by her
train
Of painted Saugus braves, their Wee-
tamoo again.
VI. AT PENNACOOK.
The hills are dearest which our child-
ish feet
Have climbed the earliest ; and the
streams most sweet
Are ever those at which our young
lips drank.
Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy
bank :
Midst the cold dreary sea-watch.
Home's hearth-lio^ht
THE BRIDAL OF TENNACOOK.
31
Shines round the hehiisman plunging
through the night ;
And still, with inward eye, the trav-
eller sees
In close, dark, stranger streets his na-
tive trees.
The home-sick dreamer\s brow is
nightly flinned
By breezes whispering of his native
land,
And on the stranger's dim and dying
eye
The soft, sweet pictures of his child-
hood lie.
Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once
more
A child upon her father's wigwam
floor!
Once more with her old fondness to
beguile
From his cold eye the strange light
of a smile.
The long bright days of summer
swiftly passed,
The dry leaves whirled in autumn's
rising blast.
And evening cloud and whitening
sunrise rime
Told of the coming of the winter-
time.
But vainly looked, the while, young
Weetamoo,
Down the dark river for her chiefs
canoe ;
No dusky messenger from Saugiis
brought
The grateful tidings which the young
wife sought.
At length a runner from her father
sent.
To Winnepurkifs sea-cooled wigwam
went :
" Eagle of Saugus, — in the woods the
clove
Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of
love."
But the dark cnief of Saugus turned
aside
In the grim anger of hard-hearted
pride ;
" I bore her as became a chieftain's
daughter.
Up to her home beside the gliding
water.
" If now no more a mat for her is
found
Of all which line her father's wigwam
round.
Let Pennacook call out his warrior
train,
And send her back with wampum gifts
again."
The baffled runner turned upon his
track.
Bearing the words of Winnepurkit
back.
^' Dog of the Marsh," cried Penna-
cook, ^' no more
Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam
floor.
"Go, — let him seek some meaner
squaw to spread
The stolen bear-skin of his be^^^^ar's
bed:
Son of a fish-hawk ! — let him dig his
clams
For some vile daughter of the Aga-
wams,
"Or coward Nipmucks! — may his
scalp dry black
In Mohawk smoke, before I send her
back."
He shook his clenched hand tow^ards
the ocean wave.
While hoarse assent his listening coun-
cil o^ave.
Alas, poor bride ! -
impart
■ can thy grim sire
32
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
His iron hardness to thy woman's
heart ?
Or cold self-torturing pride like his
VII. THE DEPARTURE.
The wild March rains had fallen fast
atone
and long
For love denied and life's warm beauty
The snowy mountains of the North
flown ?
among.
Making each vale a watercourse, —
On Autumn's gray and mournful grave
each hill
the snow
Bright with the cascade of some new-
Hung its white wreaths ; with stifled
made rill.
voice and low
The river crept, by one vast bridge
Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by
o'ercrossed,
the rain.
Built by the hoar-locked artisan of
Heaved underneath by the swollen
Frost.
current's strain.
The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merri-
And many a Moon in beauty newly
mack
born
Bore the huge ruin crashing down its
Pierced the red sunset with her silver
track.
horn,
Or, from the east, across her azure field
On that strong turbid water, a small
Rolled the wide brightness of her full-
boat
orbed shield.
Guided by one weak hand was seen to
float';
Yet Winnepurkit came not, — on the
Evil the fate which loosed it from the
mat
shore.
Of the scorned wife her dusky rival
Too early voyager with too frail an
sat;
oar!
And he, the while, in Western woods
afar,
Down the vexed centre of that rushing
Urged the long chase, or trod the
tide.
path of war.
The thick huge ice-blocks threatening
either side,
Dry up thy tears, young daughter of
The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in
a chief !
view.
Waste not on him the sacredness of
With arrowy swiftness sped that light
grief;
canoe.
Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine
own,
The trapper, moistening his moose's
His lips of scorning, and his heart of
meat
stone.
On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's
feet.
What heeds the warrior of a hundred
Saw the swift boat flash down the
fights.
troubled stream —
The storm-worn watcher through long
Slept he, or waked he? — was it truth
hunting nights.
or dream ?
Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak
distress.
The straining eye bent fearfully before,
Her home-bound grief and pining lone-
The small hand clenching on the use-
liness ?
less oar,
THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.
33
The bead-wrought blanket traihng o'er
the water —
He knew them all — woe for the Sa-
chem's daughter.
Sick and aweary of her lonely life,
Heedless of peril the still faithful wife
Had left her mother's grave, her fa-
ther's door,
To seek the wigwam of her chief once
more.
Down the white rapids like a sere leaf
w^iirled,
On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices
hurled.
Empty and broken, circled the canoe
In the vexed pool below — but, where
was Weetamoo?
VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN.
The Dark eye has left us,
The Spring-bird has flown ;
On the pathway of spirits
She wanders alone.
The song of the wood-dove has died
on our shore, —
Mat wonck kiinna-jnoneel — We hear
it no more!
O, dark water Spirit !
We cast on thy wave
These furs which may never
Hang over her grave :
Bear down to the lost one the robes
that she wore, —
Mat woiick ktiniia-nionee I — We see
her no more!
Of the strange land she walks in
No Powah has told :
It may burn with the sunshine,
Or freeze with the cold.
Let us give to our lost one the robes
that she wore.
Mat wonck kimna moneel — We see
her no more !
The path she is treading
Shall soon be our own ;
Each gliding in shadow
Unseen and alone! —
In vain shall we call on the souls gone
before, —
Mat wonck ktciina-vionee ! — They
hear us no more!
O mighty Sowanna!
Thy gateways unfold.
From thy wigwam of sunset
Lift curtains of gold!
Take home the poor Spirit whose jour-
ney is o'er, —
iMat wonck kiinna-i^ionee ! — We see
her no more !
So sang the Children of the Leaves
beside
The broad, dark river's coldly-flowing
tide,
Now low, now harsh, with sob-like
pause and swell,
On the high wind their voices rose and
fell.
Nature's wild music, — sounds of wind-
swept trees.
The scream of birds, the waiHng of the
breeze,
The roar of waters, steady, deep, and
strong, —
Mingled and murmured in that fare-
well song.
34
LEGENDARY.
legp:ndary, 1846.
THE MERRIMACK.
[" The Indians speak of abeauliful river,
fiir to the south, which they call Merri-
mack."— SlEUR DE MONTsf 1604.]
Stream of my fothers ! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill ;
Poured slantwise clown the long de-
file,
Wave, wood, and spire beneath them
smile.
I see the winding Powow fold
The green hill in its belt of gold,
And following down its wavy line.
Its sparkling waters blend with thine.
There 's not a tree upon thy side,
Nor rock, which thy returning tide
As yet hath left abrupt and stark
Above thy evening water-mark ;
No calm cove with its rocky hem.
No isle whose emerald swells begem
Thy broad, smooth current ; not a
sail
Bowed to the freshening ocean gale;
No small boat with its busy oars,
Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores ;
Nor farm-house with its maple shade,
Or rigid poplar colonnade,
But lies distinct and full in sight.
Beneath this gush of sunset light.
Centuries ago, that harbor-bar,
Stretching its length of foam afar,
And Salisbury's beach of shining
sand,
And yonder island's wave-smoothed
strand.
Saw the adventurer's tiny sail
Flit, stooping from the eastern gale ;
And o'er these woods and waters
broke
The cheer from Britain's hearts of
oak.
As brightly on the voyager's eye.
Weary of forest, sea, and sky,
Breaking the dull continuous wood,
The Merrimack rolled down his
flood ;
Mingling that clear pellucid brook.
Which channels vast Agioochook
When spring-time's sun and shower
unlock
The frozen fountains of the rock,
And more abundant waters given
P^rom that pure lake, " The Smile of
Heaven,"
Tributes from vale and mountain-
side, —
With ocean's dark, eternal tide!
On yonder rocky cape, which braves
The stormy challenge of the waves.
Midst tangied vine and dwarfish wood,
The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood.
Planting upon the topmost crag
The staff of England's battle-flag ;
And, while from out its heavy fold
Saint George's crimson cross un-
rolled,
Midst roll of drum and trumpet
blare.
And weapons brandishing in air,
He gave to that lone promontory
The sweetest name in all his story ;
Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters.
Whose harems look on StambouPs
waters, —
Who, when the chance of war had
bound
The Moslem chain his limbs around.
Wreathed o'er with silk that iron
chain,
Soothed with her smiles his hours of
pain.
And fondly to her youthful slave
A dearer gift than freedom gave.
But look! — the yellow light no more
Streams down on wave and verdant
shore ;
And clearly on the calm air swells
The twilight voice of distant bells.
THE NORSEMEN.
35
From Ocean's bosom, white and
thin,
The mists come slowly rolling in ;
Hills, woods, the rivers rocky rim,
Amidst the sea-like vapor swim,
While yonder lonely coast-light, set
Within its wave-washed minaret,
Half quenched, a beamless star and
pale,
Shines dimly through its cloudy veil !
Home of my fathers ! — I have stood
Where Hudson rolled his lordly
flood:
Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade
Along his frowning Palisade ;
Looked down the Appalachian peak
On Juniata's silver streak ;
Have seen along his valley gleam
The Mohawk's softly winding stream ;
The level light of sunset shine
Through broad Potomac's hem of
pine ;
And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner
Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna ;
Yet, wheresoever his step might be,
Thy wandering child looked back to
Thee!
Heard in his dreams thy river's sound
Of murmuring on its pebbly bound,
The unforgotten swell and roar
Of waves on thy familiar shore ;
And saw, amidst the curtained gloom
And quiet of his lonely room.
Thy sunset scenes before him pass ;
As, in Agrippa's magic glass.
The loved and lost arose to view,
Remembered groves in greenness
grew,
Bathed still in childhood's morning
dew.
Along \vhose bowers of beauty swept
Whatever Memory's mourners wept.
Sweet faces, which the charnel kept.
Young, gentle eyes, which long had
slept ;
And while the gazer leaned to trace.
More near, some dear familiar face.
He wept to find the vision flown,—
A phantom and a dream alone !
THE NORSEMEN.
Gift from the cold and silent Past!
A relic to the present cast ;
Left on the ever-changing strand
Of shifting and unstable sand,
Which wastes beneath the steady
chime
And beating of the waves of Time !
Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely
block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
Thy rude and savage outline wrought?
The waters of my native stream
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam :
From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
The circles widen to its shore ;
And cultured field and peopled town
Slope to its willowed margin down.
Yet, while this morning breeze is
bringing
The home-life sound of school-bells
ringing.
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
Of the fire-winged and steedless car,
And voices from the wayside near
Come quick and blended on my ear,
A spell is in this old gray stone, —
My thoughts are with the Past alone!
A change! — the steepled tow^n no
more
Stretches along the sail-thronged
shore ;
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,
Fade sun -gilt spire and mansion
proud :
Spectrally rising where they stood,
I see the old, primeval wood :
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand
I see its solemn waste expand :
It climbs the green and cultured hill.
It arches o'er the valley's rill ;
And leans from clifl'and crag, to throw
Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
Unchanged, alone, the same bright
river
36
LEGENDARY.
Flows on, as it will flow forever !
I listen, and I hear the low
Soft ripple where its waters go ;
1 hear behind the panther's cry,
The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling
by,
And shyly on the river's brink
The deer is stooping down to drink.
But hark ! — from wood and rock flung
back,
What sound comes up the Merrimack ?
What sea-worn barks are those which
throw
The light spray from each rushing
prow?
Have they not in the North Sea's
blast
Bowed to the waves the straining
mast ?
Their frozen sails the low, pale sun
Of Thul^'s night has shone upon ;
Flapped by the sea-wind\s gusty sweep
Round icy drift, and headland steep.
Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's
daughters
Have watched them fading o'er the
waters.
Lessening through driving mist and
spray,
Like white-winged sea-birds on their
way !
Onward they glide, — and now I view
Their iron-armed and stalwart crew ;
Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,
Turned to green earth and summer
sky:
Each broad, seamed breast has cast
aside
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide ;
Bared to the sun and soft warm air,
Streams back the Norsemen's yellow
hair.
I see the gleam of axe and spear.
The sound of smitten shields I hear,
Keeping a harsh and fitting time
To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme ;
Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,
His gray and naked isles among ;
Or muttered low at midnight hour
Round Odin's mossy stone of power.
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
Has answered to that startling rune ;
The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
The light Frank knows its summons
well ;
Zona's sable-stoled Culdee
Has heard it sounding o'er the sea.
And swept, with hoary beard and
hair.
His altar's foot in trembling prayer!
'T is past, — the 'wildering vision
dies
In darkness on my dreaming eyes!
The forest vanishes in air, —
Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare ;
I hear the common tread of men.
And hum of work-day life again :
The mystic relic seems alone
A broken mass of common stone ;
And if it be the chiselled limb
Of Berserker or idol grim, —
A fragment of Valhalla's Thor,
The stormy Viking's god of War,
Or Praga of the Runic lay.
Or love-awakening Siona,
I know not, — for no graven line,
Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign.
Is left me here, by which to trace
Its name, or origin, or place.
Yet, for this vision of the Past,
This glance upon its darkness cast,
My spirit bows in gratitude
Before the Giver of all good.
Who fashioned so the human mind.
That, from the waste of Time behind
A simple stone, or mound of earth.
Can summon the departed forth ;
Quicken the Past to life again, —
The Present lose in what hath
been.
And in their primal freshness show
The buried forms of long ago.
As if a portion of that Thought
By which the Eternal will is wrought.
Whose impulse fills anew with breath
The frozen solitude of Death,
To mortal mind were sometimes lent,
CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. 37
To mortal musings sometimes sent,
To whisper — even when it seems
Bat Memory's fantasy of dreams —
Through the mind's waste of woe and
sin,
Of an immortal origin !
CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK.
1658.
To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise to-day.
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away, —
Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful three.
And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His handmaid free!
Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison bars,
Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars ;
In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night-time,
My grated casement whitened with autumn's early rime.
Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by ;
Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky ;
No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be
The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea ;
All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow
The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow.
Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold.
Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!
O, the weakness of the flesh was there, — the shrinking and the shame ;
And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came :
"Why sit'st thou thus forlornly!" the wicked murmur said,
" Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed ?
" Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and sweet,
Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street?
Where be the youths whose glances, the summer Sabbath through,
Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?
"Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra? — Bethink thee with what mirth
Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth ;
How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads white and fair.
On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.
" Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are spoken
Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing boys are broken,
No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid.
For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunters braid.
38 LEGENDARY.
" O, weak, deluded maiden! — by crazy fancies led,
With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread ;
To leave a wholesome worship, and -teaching pure and sound;
And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth bound.
" Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at things divine,
Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and wine ;
Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the pillory lame,
Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in their shame.
*' And what a fate awaits thee ? — a sadly toiling slave.
Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave!
Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall,
The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all ! "
O, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's fears
Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears,
I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer,
To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed w^ert there!
I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippics cell.
And how from Peters sleeping limbs the prison-shackles fell,
Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angePs robe of white,
And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.
Bless the Lord for all his mercies ! — for the peace and love I felt,
Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit melt ;
When, " Get behind me, Satan ! " was the language of my heart,
And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts dejDart.
Slow broke the gray cold morning ; again the sunshine fell,
Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell ;
The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward from the street
Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of passing feet.
At length the heavy l)olts fell back, my door was open cast.
And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the long street I passed ;
I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared not see,
How, from every door and window, the people gazed on me.
And doubt and fear fell on me, shame burned upon my cheek.
Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling limbs grew w^ak :
'^ O Lord ! support thy handmaid ; and from her soul cast out
The fear of man, which brings a snare, — the weakness and the doubt.'"
Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a cloud in morning's breeze.
And a low deep voice within me seemed whispering words like these :
" Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy heaven a brazen wall,
Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is over all."
CASSANDRA SOUTHWlCK. 39
We paused at length, where at my feet the sunlit waters broke
On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock ;
The }Tierchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear lines on high,
Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky.
And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped and grave and cold,
And grim and stout sea-captains with faces bronzed and old,
And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk at hand,
Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land.
And poisoning with his evil words the ruler's ready ear.
The priest leaned o'er his saddle, with laugh and scoff and jeer ;
It stirred my soul, and from my lips the seal of silence broke.
As if through woman's weakness a warning spirit spoke.
I cried, " The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the meek.
Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of the weak!
Go light the dark, cold hearth-stones, — go turn the prison lock
Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf amid the flock!"
Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a deeper red
O'er Rawson s wine-empurpled cheek the flush of anger spread;
"Good people,*' quoth the white-lipped priest, ''heed not her words so wild,
Her Master speaks within her, — the Devil owns his child!"
But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff read
That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made.
Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring
No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering.
Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning, said, —
" Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this Quaker maid?
In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore,
You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor."
Grim and silent stood the captains ; and when again he cried,
" Speak out, my worthy seamen ! " — no voice, no sign replied ;
Ikit I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my ear, —
"God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear! "
A weight seemed lifted from my heart, — a pitying friend was nigh,
I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it in his eye ;
And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so kind to me,
Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea, —
" Pile my ship with bars of silver, — pack with coins of Spanish gold,
From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold.
By the living God who made me! — I would sooner in your bay
Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!"
40 LEGENDARY.
" Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their cruel laws ! ''
Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the people^s just applause.
'^ Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old,
Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ? "
I looked on haughty Endicott ; with weapon half-way drawn,
Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn ;
Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back,
And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track.
Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness of soul ;
Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment roll.
'^ Good friends," he said, '^ since both have fled, the ruler and the priest,
Judge ye, if from their further work I be not well released.^'
Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay,
As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me go my way ;
For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen.
And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men.
O, at that hour the very earth seemed changed beneath my eye,
A holier wonder round me rose the blue walls of the sky,
A lovelier light on rock and hill, and stream and woodland lay,
And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay.
Thanksgiving to the Lord of life! — to Him all praises be.
Who from the hands of evil men hath set his handmaid free ;
All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid.
Who takes the crafty in the snare, which for the poor is laid !
Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening^s twilight calm
Uplift the loud thanksgiving, — pour forth the grateful psalm ;
Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the saints of old.
When of the Lord's good angel the rescued Peter told.
And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty men of wrong;
The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay his hand upon the strong.
Woe to the wicked rulers in his avenging hour !
Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven and devour !
But let the humble ones arise, — the poor in heart be glad.
And let the mourning ones again with robes of praise be clad,
For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the stormy wave,
And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to save !
7
I
FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS.
41
FUNERAL TREE OF THE
SOKOKIS.
1756.
Around Sebago's lonely lake
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.
The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.
The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.
Dazzling and white ! save where the
bleak.
Wild winds have bared some sjDlinter-
ing peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.
Yet green are Saco's banks below.
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark frino:ino: round those cones of
The earth hath felt the breath of spring,
Though yet on her deliverer's wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.
Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-
brooks,
And mildly from its sunny nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks.
And odors from the springing grass,
The sweet birch and the sassafras,
Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass.
Her tokens of renewing care
Hath Nature scattered everywhere.
In bud and flower, and warmer air.
But in their hour of bitterness.
What reck the broken Sokokis,
Beside their slaughtered chief, of
this ?
The turfs red stain is yet undried, —
Scarce have the death-shot echoes
died
Along Sebago's wooded side :
And silent now the hunters stand.
Grouped darkly, where a swell of land
Slopes upward from the lake's white
sand.
Fire and the axe have swept it bare.
Save one lone beech, unclosing there
Its light leaves in the vernal air.
With grave, cold looks, all sternly
mute,
They break the damp turf at its foot,
And bare its coiled and twisted root.
They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
The firm roots from the earth divide, —
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
And there the fallen chief is laid.
In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed,
And girded with his wampum-braid.
The silver cross he loved is pressed
Beneath the heavy arms, which rest
Upon his scarred and naked breast.
'T is done : the roots are backward
sent.
The beechen-tree stands up unbent, —
The Indian's fitting monument!
When of that sleeper's broken race
Their green and pleasant dwelling-
place
Which knew them once, retains no
trace ;
O, long may sunset's light be shed
As now upon that beech's head, —
A green memorial of the dead !
There shall his fitting requiem be.
In northern winds, that, cold and
free.
Howl nightly in that funeral tree.
42
LEGENDARY.
To their wild wail the waves which
Not with our partial eye shall scan,
break
Not with our pride and scorn shah
Forever round that lonely lake
ban.
A solemn undertone shall make!
The spirit of our brother man!
And who shall deem the spot unblest,
Where Nature's younger children rest,
ST. JOHN.
Lulled on their sorrowing mother's
breast?
1647.
Deem ye that mother loveth less
"To the winds give our banner.
These bronzed forms of the wilderness
Bear homeward again! "
She foldeth in her long caress?
Cried the Lord of Acadia,
Cried Charles of Estienne ,
As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers
From the prow of his shallop
blow,
He gazed, as the sun.
As if with fairer hair and brow
From its bed in the ocean.
The blue-eyed Saxon slept below.
Streamed up the St. John.
What though the places of their rest
O'er the blue western waters
No priestly knee hath ever pressed, —
That shallop had passed.
No funeral rite nor prayer hath
Where the mists of Penobscot
blessed?
Clung damp on her mast.
St. Saviour had looked
What though the bigot's ban be there.
On the heretic sail.
And thoughts of wailing and despair.
As the songs of the Huguenot
And cursing in the place of prayer !
Rose on the gale.
Yet Heaven hath angels w^atching
The pale, ghostly fathers
round
Remembered her well.
The Indian's lowliest forest-mound, —
And had cursed her wdiile passing,
And they have made it holy ground.
With taper and bell.
But the men of Monhegan,
There ceases man's frail judgment;
Of Papists abhorred.
all
Had welcomed and feasted
His powerless bolts of cursing fall
The heretic Lord.
Unheeded on that grassy pall.
They had loaded his shallop
O, peeled, and hunted, and reviled,
With dun-fish and ball.
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild !
With stores for his larder.
Great Nature owns her simple child !
And steel for his wall.
Pemequid, from her bastions
And Nature's God, to whom alone
And turrets of stone.
The secret of the heart is known, —
Had welcomed his coming
The hidden language traced thereon ;
With banner and gun.
Who from its many cumberings
And the prayers of the elders
Of form and creed, and outward
Had followed his way,
things,
As homeward he glided,
To light the naked spirit brings ;
Down Pentecost Bay.
ST. JOHN.
43
0, well sped La Tour!
" Pentagoef s dark vessels
P^or, in peril and pain,
Were moored in the bay,
His Ifidy kept watch,
Grim sea-lions, roaring
For his coming again.
Aloud for their prey."
" But what of my lady?"
O'er the Isle of the Pheasant
Cried Charles of Estienne :
The morning sun shone,
'- On the shot-crumbled turret
On the plane-trees which shaded
Thy lady was seen :
The shores of St. John.
" Now, why from yon battlements
'' Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud,
Speaks not my love!
Her hand grasped thy pennon,
Why waves there no banner
While her dark tresses swayed
My fortress above ? "
In the hot breath of cannon!
But woe to the heretic.
Dark and wild, from his deck
Evermore woe!
St. Estienne gazed about,
When the son of the church
On fire-wasted dwellings,
And the cross is his foe !
And silent redoubt ;
From the low, shattered walls
'' In the track of the shell,
Which the flame had overrun.
In the path of the ball,
There floated no banner.
Pentagoet swept over
There thundered no gun !
The breach of the wall!
Steel to steel, gun to gun.
But beneath the low arch
One moment, — and then
Of its doorway there stood
Alone stood the victor.
A Dale priest of Rome,
Alone with his men !
'. n his cloak and his hood.
With the bound of a lion.
'^ Of its sturdy defenders.
La Tour sprang to land.
Thy lady alone
On the throat of the Papist
Saw the cross-blazoned banner
He fastened his hand.
Float over St. John."
^^Let the dastard look to it! "
'^ Speak, son of the Woman
Cried fiery Estienne,
Of scarlet and sin!
'^ Were D'Aulney King Louis,
What wolf has been prowling
I 'd free her again ! "
My castle within? "
From the grasp of the soldier
^' Alas for thy lady!
The Jesuit broke.
No service from thee
Half in scorn, half in sorrow.
Is needed by her
He smiled as he spoke :
Whom the Lord hath set free :
Nine days, in stern silence.
" No wolf, Lord of Estienne,
Her thraldom she bore.
Has ravaged thy hall.
But the tenth morning came.
But thy red-handed rival.
And Death opened her door ! "
With fire, steel, and ball!
On an errand of mercy
As if suddenly smitten
I hitherward came,
La Tour staggered back ;
WHiile the walls of thy castle
His hand grasped his sword hilt,
Yet spouted with flame.
His forehead grew black.
44
LEGENDARY.
He sprang on the deck
Of his shallop again.
" We cruise now for vengeance !
Give way!" cried Estienne.
"Massachusetts shall hear
Of the Huguenot's wrong,
And from island and creekside
Her fishers shall throng!
Pentagoet shall rue
What his Papists have done,
When his palisades echo
The Puritan's gun!"
O, the loveliest of heavens
Hung tenderly o'er him,
There were waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him :
But a pale hand was beckoning
The Huguenot on ;
And in blackness and ashes
Behind was St. John!
PENTUCKET.
1708.
How sweetly on the wood-girt town
The mellow light of sunset shone !
Each small, bright lake, whose waters
still
Mirror the forest and the hill,
Reflected from its waveless breast
The beauty of a cloudless west.
Glorious as if a ghmpse were given
Within the western gates of heaven,
Left, by the spirit of the star
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!
Beside the river's tranquil flood
The dark and low-walled dwellings
stood,
Where many a rood of open land
Stretched up and down on either hand.
With corn-leaves waving freshly green
The thick and blackened stumps be-
tween.
Behind, unbroken, deep and dread.
The wild, untravelled forest spread,
Back to those mountains, white and
cold.
Of which the Indian trapper told,
Upon whose summits never yet
Was mortal foot in safety set.
Quiet and calm, without a fear
Of danger darkly lurking near.
The weary laborer left his plough, —
The milkmaid carolled by her cow, —
From cottage door and household
hearth
Rose songs of praise, or tones of
mirth.
At length the murmur died away.
And silence on that village lay, —
So slept Pompeii, tower and hall.
Ere the quick earthquake swallowed
all,
Undreaming of the fiery fate
Which made its dwellings desolate!
Hours passed away. By moonlight
sped
The Merrimack along his bed.
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood
Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood.
Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,
As the hushed grouping of a dream.
Yet on the still air crept a sound, —
No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound.
Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing,
Nor leaves in midnio^ht breezes blow-
Was that the tread of many feet,
Which downward from the hillside
beat?
What forms were those which darkly
stood m
Just on the margin of the wood? — *
Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight
dim.
Or paling rude, or leafless hmb?
No, — through the trees fierce eyeballs
glowed
Dark human forms in moonshine
showed.
Wild from their native wilderness.
With painted limbs and battle-dress!
THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.
45
A yell the dead might wake to hear
Swelled on the night air, far and
clear, —
Then smote the Indian tomahawk
On crashing door and shattering
lock, —
Then rang the rifle-shot, — and then
The shrill death-scream of stricken
men, —
Sank the red axe in woman's brain.
And childhood's cry arose in vain, —
Bursting through roof and window
came.
Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame ;
And blended fire and moonlight glared
On still dead men and weapons bared.
The morning sun looked brightly
through
The river willows, wet with dew.
No sound of combat filled the air, —
No shout was heard, — nor gunshot
there :
Yet still the thick and sullen smoke
From smouldering ruins slowly
broke ;
And on the greensward many a
stain.
And, here and there, the mangled
slain.
Told how that midnight bolt had sped,
Pentucket, on thy fated head!
Even now the villager can tell
Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone
fell.
Still show the door of wasting oak.
Through which the fatal death-shot
broke.
And point the curious stranger where
De Rouville's corse lay grim and
bare, —
Whose hideous head, in death still
feared,
Bore not a trace of hair or beard, —
And still, within the churchyard
ground.
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound.
Whose grass-grown surface overlies
The victims of that sacrifice.
THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.
Father! to thy suffering poor
Strength and grace and faith im-
part,
And with thy own love restore
Comfort to the broken heart!
O, the failing ones confirm
With a holier strength of zeal ! —
Give thou not the feeble worm
Helpless to the spoiler's heel !
Father! for thy holy sake
We are spoiled and hunted thus ;
Joyful, for thy truth we take
Bonds and burthens unto us :
Poor, and weak, and robbed of all,
Weary with our daily task.
That thy truth may never fall
Through our weakness, Lord, we
ask.
Round our fired and wasted homes
Flits the forest-bird unscared,
And at noon the wild beast comes
Where our frugal meal was shared ;
For the song of praises there
Shrieks the crow the livelong day ;
For the sound of evening prayer
Howls the evil beast of prey!
Sweet the songs we loved to sing
Underneath thy holy sky, —
Words and tones that used to bring
Tears of joy in every eye, —
Dear the wrestling hours of prayer,
When we gathered knee to knee,
Blameless youth and hoary hair,
Bowed, O God, alone to thee.
As thine early children, Lord,
Shared their wealth and daily
bread.
Even so, with one accord.
We, in love, each other fed.
Not with us the miser's hoard.
Not with us his grasping hand ;
Equal round a common board.
Drew our meek and brother band !
46
LEGENDARY.
Safe our quiet Eden lay
When the war-whoop stirred the
land
And the Indian turned away
From our home his bloody hand.
Well that forest-ranger saw,
That the burthen and the curse
Of the white man's cruel law
Rested also upon us.
Torn apart, and driven forth
To our toiling hard and long,
Father! from the dust of earth
Lift we still our grateful song!
Grateful, — that in bonds we share
In thy love which maketh free ;
Joyful, — that the wrongs we bear,
Draw us nearer. Lord, to thee !
Grateful ! — that wherever we toil, —
By Wachuset's wooded side.
On Nantucket's sea-worn isle.
Or by wald Neponset's tide, —
Still, in spirit, we are near.
And our evening hymns, which rise
Separate and discordant here.
Meet and mingle in the skies !
Let the scoffer scorn and mock,
Let the proud and evil priest
Rob the needy of his flock.
For his wdne-cup and his feast, —
Redden not thy bolts in store
Through the blackness of thy skies?
For the sighing of the poor
Wilt Thou not, at length, arise?
Worn and wasted, oh! how long
Shall thy trodden poor complain?
In thy name they bear the wrong,
In thy cause the bonds of pain!
Melt oppression's heart of steel,
Let the haughty priesthood see,
And their blinded followers feel,
That in us they mock at Thee!
In thy time, O Lord of hosts.
Stretch abroad that hand to save
Which of old, on Egypt's coasts.
Smote apart the Red Sea's wave I
Lead us from this evil land.
From the spoiler set us free.
And once more our gathered band.
Heart to heart, shall worship thee!
THE FOUNTAIN.
Traveller ! on thy journey toiling
By the swift Powow,
With the summer sunshine falling
On thy heated brow,
Listen, while all else is still.
To the brooklet from the hill.
Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing
By that streamlet's side.
And a greener verdure showing
Where its waters glide, —
Down the hill-slope murmuring on,
Over root and mossy stone.
Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth
O'er the sloping hill.
Beautiful and freshly springeth
That soft-flowing rill.
Through its dark roots wreathed and
bare.
Gushing up to sun and air.
Brighter waters sparkled never
In that magic well.
Of whose gift of life forever
Ancient legends tell, —
In the lonely desert wasted,
And by mortal lip untasted.
Waters which the proud Castilian
Sought with longing eyes.
Underneath the bright jDavilion
Of the Indian skies ;
Where his forest pathway lay
Through the blooms of Florida.
Years ago a lonely stranger,
With the dusky brow
Of the outcast forest-ranger,
Crossed the swift Powow;
And betook him to the rill
And the oak upon the hill.
THE EXILES.
47
O'er his face of moody sadness
For an instant shone
Something like a gleam of gladness,
As he stooped him down
To the fountain's grassy side,
And his eager thirst supplied.
With the oak its shadow throwing
O'er his mossy seat,
And the cool, sweet waters flowing
Softly at his feet,
Closely by the fountain's rim
That lone Indian seated him.
Autumn's earliest frost had given
To the woods below
Hues of beauty, such as heaven
Lendeth to its bow ;
And the soft breeze from the west
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest.
Far behind was Ocean striving
With his chains of sand ;
Southward, sunny glimpses giving,
'Twixt the swells of land.
Of its calm and silvery track,
Rolled the tranquil Merrimack.
Over village, wood, and meadow
Gazed that stranger man,
Sadly, till the twilight shadow
Over all things ran.
Save where spire and westward pane
Flashed the sunset back again.
Gazing thus upon the dwelling
Of his w^arrior sires,
Where no lingering trace was telling
Of their wigwam fires,
Who the gloomy thoughts might know
Of that wandering child of woe?
Naked lay, in sunshine glowing.
Hills that once had stood
Down their sides the shadows throw-
ing
Of a mighty wood,
W^here the deer his covert kept,
And the eagle's pinion swept!
Where the birch canoe had glided
Down the swift Powow^,
Dark and gloomy bridges strided
Those clear waters now ;
And where once the beaver swam,
Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam.
For the wood-bird's merry singing,
And the hunter's cheer.
Iron clang and hammer's ringing
Smote upon his ear ;
And the thick and sullen smoke
f^rom the blackened forges broke.
Could it be his fathers ever
Loved to linger here ?
These bare hills, this conquered
river, —
Could they hold them dear,
With their native loveliness
Tamed and tortured into this ?
Sadly, as the shades of even
Gathered o'er the hill.
While the western half of heaven
Bluslied with sunset still.
From the fountain's mossy seat
Turned the Indian's weary feet.
Year on year hath flown forever,
But he came no more
To the hillside or the river
Where he came before.
But the villager can tell
Of that strange man's visit well.
And the merry children, laden
With their fruits or flowers, — •
Roving boy and laughing maiden,
In their school-day hours,
Love the simple tale to tell
Of the Indian and his well.
THE EXILES.
1660.
The good man sat beside his door
One sultry afternoon,
48
LEGENDARY.
With his young wife singing at his
side
An old and goodly tune.
A glimmer of heat was in the air ;
The dark green woods were still ;
And the skirts of a heavy thunder-
cloud
Hung over the western hill.
Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud
Above the wilderness,
As some dark world from upper air
Were stooping over this.
At times the solemn thunder pealed,
And all was still again,
Save a low murmur in the air
Of coming wind and rain.
Just as the first big rain-drop fell,
A weary stranger came.
And stood before the farmer's door.
With travel soiled and lame.
Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope
Was in his quiet glance.
And peace, like autumn's moonlight,
clothed
His tranquil countenance.
A look, like that his Master wore
In Pilate's council-hall :
It told of wrongs, — but of a love
Meekly forgiving all.
" Friend ! wilt thou give me shelter
here?"
The stranger meekly said ;
And, leaning on his oaken staff.
The goodman's features read.
" My life is hunted, — evil men
Are following in my track ;
The traces of the torturer's whip
Are on my aged back.
" And much, I fear, 't will peril thee
Within thy doors to take
A hunted seeker of the Truth,
Oppressed for conscience' sake."
O, kindly spoke the goodman's wife, — '
^' Come in, old man ! " quoth she, —
'' We will not leave thee to the storm,
Whoever thou mayst be."
Then came the aged wanderer in,
And silent sat him down ;
While all within grew dark as night
Beneath the storm-cloud's frown.
But while the sudden lightning's blaze
Filled every cottage nook.
And with the jarring thunder-roll
The loosened casements shook,
A heavy tramp of horses' feet
Came sounding up the lane.
And half a score of horse, or more,
Came plunging through the rain.
^' Now, Goodman Macey, ope thy
door, —
We would not be house-breakers ;
A rueful deed thou 'st done this day.
In harboring banished Quakers."
Out looked the cautious goodman then.
With much of fear and awe.
For there, with broad wig drenched
with rain.
The parish priest he saw.
"Open thy door, thou wicked man,
And let thy pastor in,
And give God thanks, if forty stripes
Repay thy deadly sin."
" What seek ye ? " quoth the good-
man, —
" The stranger is my guest ;
He is worn with toil and grievous
wrong, —
Pray let the old man rest."
" Now, out upon thee, canting knave!"
And strong hands shook the door,
THE EXILES.
49
'' Believe me, Macey,^' quoth the
priest, —
^^ Thou 'It rue thy conckict sore/'
Then kindled Macey's eye of fire :
'' No priest who walks the earth,
Shall pluck away the stranger-guest
Made welcome to my hearth."
Down from his cottage wall he caught
The matchlock, hotly tried
At Preston-pans and Marston-moor,
By fiery Ireton's side ;
Where Puritan, and Cavalier,
With shout and psalm contended ;
And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's
prayer.
With battle-thunder blended.
Up rose the ancient stranger then :
"' My spirit is not free
To bring the wrath and violence
Of evil men on thee :
^^ And for thyself, I pray forbear, —
Bethink thee of thy Lord,
Who healed again the smitten ear,
And sheathed his follower's sword.
" I go, as to the slaughter led :
Friends of the poor, farewell ! "
Beneath his hand the oaken door,
Back on its hinges fell.
" Come forth, old graybeard, yea and
nay " ;
The reckless scoffers cried,
As to a horseman's saddle-bow
The old man's arms were tied.
And of his bondage hard and long
In Boston's crowded jail.
Where suffering woman's prayer was
heard.
With sickening childhood's wail.
It suits not with our tale to tell :
Those scenes have passed away, —
Let the dim shadows of the past
Brood o'er that evil day.
''Ho, sheriff!" quoth the ardent
priest, —
" Take Goodman Macey too ;
The sin of this day's heresy.
His back or purse shall rue."
"Now, goodwife, haste thee!" Macey
cried.
She caught his manly arm : —
Behind, the parson urged pursuit,
With outcry and alarm.
Ho! speed the Maceys, neck or
naught, —
The river-course was near : —
The plashing on its pebbled shore
Was music to their ear.
A gray rock, tasselled o'er with
birch,
Above the waters hung.
And at its base, with every wave,
A small light wherry swung.
A leap — they gain the boat — and
there
The good man wields his oar :
''111 luck betide them all,"— he
cried, —
"The laggards upon the shore."
Down through the crashing under-
wood.
The burly sheriff came : —
" Stand, Goodman Macey, — yield
thyself;
Yield in the King's own name."
"Now out upon thy hangman's
foce!"
Bold Macey answered then, —
"Whip woinen, on the village green.
But meddle not with /nen^
The priest came panting to the
shore, —
His grave cocked hat was gone ;
50
LEGENDARY.
Behind him, Hke some owl's nest,
hung
His wig upon a thorn.
'* Come back, — come back ! '' the
parson cried,
" The church's curse beware."
•' Curse, an' thou wilt," said Macey,
'- but
Thy blessing prithee spare.''
-V^ile scoffer!'' cried the baffled
priest, —
'^ Thou 'It yet the gallows see."
•Who's born to be hanged, will not
be drow^ned,"
Quoth Macey, merrily ;
^ And so, sir sheriff and priest, good
by!''
He bent him to his oar,
\nd the small boat glided quietly
From the twain upon the shore.
"^ow in the west, the heavy clouds
Scattered and fell asunder,
^Vhile feebler came the rush of rain.
And fainter growled the thunder.
^nd through the broken clouds, the
sun
Looked out serene and warm,
r*ainting its holy symbol-light
Upon the passing storm.
3, beautiful! that rainbow span.
O'er dim Crane-neck was bended ; — .
3ne bright foot touched the eastern
hills,
And one with ocean blended.
3y green Pentucket's southern slope
The small boat glided fast, —
rhe watchers of " the Block-house "'
saw
The strangers as they passed.
rhat night a stalwart garrison
Sat shaking in their shoes,
To hear the dip of Indian oars, —
The glide of birch canoes.
The fisher-wives of Salisbury,
(The men were all away,)
Looked out to see the stranger oar
Upon their waters play.
Deer- Island's rocks and fir-trees
threw^
Their sunset-shadows o'er them.
And Newbury's spire and weather-
cock
Peered o'er the pines before them.
Around the Black Rocks, on their
left.
The marsh lay broad and green ;
And on their right, with dwarf shrubs
crowned.
Plum Island's hills were seen.
With skilful hand and wary eye
The harbor-bar was crossed ; —
A plaything of the restless wave,
The boat on ocean tossed.
The glory of the sunset heaven
On land and water lay, —
On the steep hills of Agawam,
On cape, and bluff, and bay.
They passed the gray rocks of Cape
Ann,
And Gloucester's harbor-bar ;
The watch-fire of the garrison
Shone like a setting star.
How brightly broke the morning
On Massachusetts Bay!
Blue wave, and bright green island,
Rejoicing in the day.
On passed the bark in safety
Round isle and headland steep, —
No tempest broke above them,
No fog-cloud veiled the deep.
Far round the bleak and stormy Cape
The vent'rous Macey passed,
THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD.
51
And on Nantucket's naked isle,
Drew up his boat at last.
And how, in log-built cabin,
They braved the rough se
weather ;
And there, in jDcace and quietness,
Went down lifers vale together :
How others drew around them.
And hov/ their fishing sped,
Until to every wind of heaven
Nantucket's sails were spread ;
How pale Want alternated
With Plenty's golden smile ;
Behold, is it not written
In the annals of the isle.^
And yet that isle remaineth
A refuge of the free.
As when true-hearted Macey
Beheld it from the sea.
Free as the winds that winnow
Her shrubless hills of sand, —
Free as the waves that batter
Along her yielding land.
Than hers, at duty's summons,
No loftier spirit stirs, —
Nor falls o'er human suffering
A readier tear than hers.
God bless the sea-beat island! —
And grant fore verm ore.
That charity and freedom dwell,
As now upon her shore !
THE NEW WIFE AND THE
OLD.
Dark the halls, and cold the feast, —
Gone the bridemaids, gone the
priest :
All is over, — all is done,
Twain of yesterday are one !
Blooming girl and manhood gray.
Autumn in the arms of May!
Hushed within and hushed without.
Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout ;
Dies the bonfire on the hill ;
All is dark and all is still,
Save the starlight, save the breeze
Moaning through the graveyard
trees ;
And the great sea-waves below,
Pulse of the midnight beating slow.
From the brief dream of a bride
She hath wakened, at his side.
With half-uttered shriek and start, —
Feels she not his beating heart?
And the pressure of his arm.
And his breathing near and warm?
Lightly from the bridal bed
Springs that fair dishevelled head,
And a feeling, new, intense.
Half of shame, half innocence.
Maiden fear and wonder speaks
Through her lips and changing
cheeks.
From the oaken mantle glowing
Faintest light the lamp is throwing
On the mirror's antique mould.
High-backed chair, and wainscot old,
And, through faded curtains stealing,
His dark sleeping face revealing.
Listless lies the strong man there,
Silver-streaked his careless hair ;
Lips of love have left no trace
On that hard and haughty face ;
And that forehead's knitted thought
Love's soft hand hath not unwrought.
^' Yet," she sighs, ^' he loves me well,
More than these calm lips will tell.
Stooping to my lowly state.
He hath made me rich and great.
And I bless him, though he be
Hard and stern to all save me! ''
While she speaketh, falls the light
O'er her fingers small and white ;
Gold and gem, and costly ring
52
LEGENDARY.
Back the timid lustre fling, —
Love's selectest gifts, and rare,
His proud hand had fastened there.
Gratefully she marks the glow
From those tapering lines of snow ;
Fondly o'er the sleeper bending
His black hair with golden blending,
In her soft and light caress,
Cheek and lip together press.
Ha! — that start of horror! — Why
That wild stare and wilder cry,
Full of terror, full of pain?
Is there madness in her brain?
Hark! that gasping, hoarse and low,
" Spare me, — spare me, — let me go ! *'
God have mercy! — Icy cold
Spectral hands her own enfold,
Drawing silently from them
Love's fair gifts of gold and gem,
" Waken ! save me ! " still as death
At her side he slumbereth.
Ring and bracelet all are gone,
And that ice-cold hand withdrawn ;
But she hears a murmur low,
Full of sweetness, full of woe,
Half a sigh and half a moan :
'' Fear not ! give the dead her own ! "
Ah ! — the dead wife's voice she knows !
That cold hand, whose pressure froze,
Once in warmest life had borne
Gem and band her own hath worn.
^'Wake thee! wake thee!" Lo, his
eyes
Open with a dull surprise.
In his arms the strong man folds her,
Closer to his breast he holds her ;
Trembling limbs his own are meeting,
And he feels her heart's quick beating :
"Nay, my dearest, why this fear?"
"Hush!" she saith, "the dead is
here!"
" Nay, a dream, — an idle dream."
But before the lamp's pale gleam
Tremblingly her hand she raises, —
There no more the diamond blazes.
Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold, —
" Ah ! " she sighs, " her hand was
cold!"
Broken words of cheer he saith,
But his dark lip quivereth,
And as o'er the past he thinketh.
From his young wife's arms he shrink-
eth;
Can those soft arms round him lie,
Underneath his dead wife's eye?
She her fair young head can rest
Soothed and childlike on his breast.
And in trustful innocence
Draw new strength and courage
thence ;
He, the proud man, feels within
But the cowardice of sin !
She can murmur in her thought
Simple prayers her mother taught.
And His blessed angels call.
Whose great love is over all ;
He, alone, in prayerless pride,
Meets the dark Past at her side!
One, who living shrank with dread
From his look, or word, or tread,
Unto whom her early grave
Was as freedom to the slave.
Moves him at this midnight hour.
With the dead's unconscious power!
Ah, the dead, the unforgot !
From their solemn homes of thought,
Where the cypress shadows blend
Darkly over foe and friend.
Or in love or sad rebuke.
Back upon the living look.
And the tenderest ones and weakest,
Who their wrongs have borne the
meekest,
Lifting from those dark, still places.
Sweet and sad-remembered faces.
O'er the guilty hearts behind
An unwitting triumph find.
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.
53
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
From 1833 to 1848.
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.
'TwAS night. The tranquil moon-
Hght smile
With which Heaven dreams of
Earth, shed down
Its beauty on the Indian isle, —
On broad green field and white-
walled town ;
And inland waste of rock and wood,
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
Rose, mellowed through the silver
gleam.
Soft as the landscape of a dream,
All motionless and dewy wet.
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met :
The myrtle with its snowy bloom.
Crossing the nightshade's solemn
gloom, —
The white cecropia's silver rind
Relieved by deeper green behind, —
The orange with its fruit of gold, —
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, —
The passion-flower, with symbol holy.
Twining its tendrils long and lowly, —
The rhexias dark, and cassia tall.
And proudly rising over all.
The kingly palm^s imperial stem,
Crowned with its leafy diadem.
Star-like, beneath whose sombre
shade.
The fiery-winged cucullo pla3'ed!
Yes, — lovely w^as thine aspect, then,
f^air island* of the Western Sea!
Lavish of beauty, even when
Thy brutes were happier than thy men.
For they, at least, were free !
Regardless of thy glorious clime,
Unmindflil of thy soil of flowers.
The toiling negro sighed, that Time
No faster sped his hours.
For, by the dewy moonlight still.
He fed the weary-turning mill.
Or bent him in the chill morass,
To pluck the long and tangled grass,
And hear above his scar- worn back
The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack ;
While in his heart one evil thought
In solitary madness wrought.
One baleful fire surviving still
The quenching of the immortal
mind.
One sterner passion of his kind,
Which even fetters could not kill, —
The savage hope, to deal, erelong,
A vengeance bitterer than his wrong!
Hark to that cry ! — long, loud, and
shrill.
From field and forest, rock and hill.
Thrilling and horrible it rang,
Around, beneath, above : —
The wild beast from his cavern sprang,
The wild bird from her grove!
Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony
Were mingled in that midnight cry;
But like the lion's growl of wrath.
When falls that hunter in his path
Whose barbed arrow, deeply set.
Is rankling in his bosom yet.
It told of hate, full, deep, and strong.
Of vengeance kindling out of wrong;
It was as if the crimes of years —
The unrequited toil, the tears.
The shame and hate, which liken well
Earth's garden to the nether hell —
Had found in nature's self a tongue.
On which the gathered horror hung ;
As if from clirf, and stream, and glen
Burst on the startled ears of men
That voice which rises unto God,
Solemn and stern, — the cry of blood !
It ceased, — and all was still once
more.
Save ocean chafing on his shore,
The sighing of the wind between
The broad banana's leaves of green.
Or bough by restless plumage shook.
Or murmuring voice of mountain
brook.
54
VOICES OF FREEDOxM.
Brief was the silence. Once again
Pealed to the skies that frantic
yell.
Glowed on the heavens a fiery stain,
And flashes rose and fell ;
And painted on the blood-red sky,
Dark, naked arms were tossed on
high :
And. round the white man's lordly
hall,
Trod, fierce and free, the brute he
made ;
And those who crept along the wall,
And answered to his lightest call
With more than spaniel dread, —
The creatures of his lawless beck, —
Were trampling on his very neck!
And on the night-air, wild and clear.
Rose woman's shriek of more than
fear;
For bloodied arms w^re round her
thrown.
And dark cheeks pressed against her
own !
Then, injured Afric! — for the shame
Of thy own daughters, vengeance
came
Full on the scornful hearts of those.
Who mocked thee in thy nameless
woes,
And to thy hapless children gave
One choice, — pollution or the grave!
Where then was he whose fiery zeal
Had taught the trampled heart to
feel.
Until despair itself grew strong.
And vengeance fed its torch from
wrong?
Now, when the thunderbolt is speed-
ing:
Now, when oppression's heart is
bleeding ;
Now, when the latent curse of Time
Is raining down in fire and blood, —
Lt curse w'
of crime,
Flas gathered, drop by drop, its
flood, —
Wliy strikes he not, the foremost one,
Wliere murder's sternest deeds are
done ?
He stood the aged palms beneath,
That shadowed o'er his humble
door.
Listening, with half-suspended breath,
To the wild sounds of fear and
death, —
Toussaint I'Ouverture !
What marvel that his heartbeat high!
The blow for freedom had been
given,
And blood had answered to the cry
Which Earth sent up to Heaven !
What marvel that a fierce delight
Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night, —
As «:roan and shout and burstins:
name
Told where the midnight tempest
came,
With blood and fire along its van.
And death behind I — he was a Man!
Yes, dark-souled chieftain! — if the
light
Of mild Religion's heavenly ray
Unveiled not to thy mental sight
The lowlier and the purer way.
In which the Holy Sufferer trod,
Meekly amidst the sons of crime, —
That calm reliance upon God
For justice in his own good time, —
That gentleness to which belongs
Forgiveness for its many wrongs.
Even as the primal martyr, kneeling
For mercy on the evil-dealing, —
Let not the favored white man name
Thy stern appeal, with words of blame.
Has he not, with the light of heaven
Broadly around him, made the
same ?
Yea, on his thousand war-fields striven,
And gloried in his ghastly shame ? —
Kneeling amidst his brother's blood,
To oft'er mockery unto God,
As if the High and Holy One
Could smile on deeds of murder
done ! —
As if a human sacrifice
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.
55
Were purer in his Holy eyes,
Though offered up by Christian hands,
Than the foul rites of Pa^^an lands !
Sternly, amidst his household band,
His carbine grasped within his hand,
The white man stood, prepared and
still,
Waiting the shock of maddened men,
Unchained, and fierce as tigers, when
The horn winds through their cav-
erned hill.
And one was weeping in his sight, —
The sweetest flower of all the isle, —
The bride who seemed but yester-
night
Love's fair embodied smile.
And, clinging to her trembling knee
Looked up the form of infancy.
With tearful glance in either face
The secret of its fear to trace.
" Ha ! stand or die! " The white man's
eye
His steady musket gleamed alon^,
As a tall Negro hastened nigh,
W^ith fearless step and strong.
"Wliat, ho, Toussaint!" A mpment
more,
His shadow crossed the lighted floor.
'^ Away ! '' he shouted ; '^ fly wdth me, —
The white man\s bark is on the sea ; —
Her sails must catch the seaward wind.
For sudden vengeance sweeps behind.
Our brethren from their graves have
spoken,
The yoke is spurned, — the chain is
broken ;
On all the hills our fires are glowing, —
Through all the vales red blood is
flowing!
No more the mocking White shall
rest
His foot upon the Negro's breast ;
No more, at morn or eve, shall drip
The warm blood from the driver's
whip :
Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance
sworn
For all the wrongs his race have
borne, —
Though for each drop of Negro blood
The white man's veins shall pour
a flood ;
Not all alone the sense of ill
Around his heart is lingering still.
Nor deeper can the white man feel
The generous w^armth of grateful zeal.
Friends of the Negro! fly with me, —
The path is open to the sea :
Away, for life!" — He spoke, and
pressed
The young child to his manly breast,
As, headlong, through the cracking
cane,
Down swept the dark insurgent train, —
Drunken and grim, with shout and yell
Howled through the dark, like sounds
from hell.
Far out, in peace, the white man's sail
Swayed free before the sunrise gale.
Cloud-like that island hung afar.
Along the bright horizon's verge.
O'er which the curse of servile war
Rolled its red torrent, surge on
surge;
And he — the Negro champion —
where
In the fierce tumult struggled he?
Go trace him by the fiery glare
Of dwellings in the midnight air, —
The yells of triumph and despair, —
The streams that crimson to the sea!
Sleep calmly in thy dungeon-tomb.
Beneath Besan^on's alien sky.
Dark Haytien! — for the time shall
come.
Yea, even now is nigh, —
Wlien, everywhere, thy name shall be
Redeemed from colo7-^s ijifamy ;
And men shall learn to speak of thee,
As one of earth's great spirits, born
In servitude, and nursed in scorn,
Casting aside the weary weight
And fetters of its low estate.
In that strong majesty of soul
Which knows no color, tongue, or
clime, —
56
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Which still hath spurned the base
control
Of tyrants through all time!
Far other hands than mine may wreath
The laurel round thy brow of death,
And speak thy praise, as one whose
word
A thousand fiery spirits stirred, —
Who crushed his foeman as a worm, —
Whose step on human hearts fell
firm : —
Be mine the better task to find
A tribute for thy lofty mind,
Amidst whose gloomy vengeance
shone
Some milder virtues all thine own, —
Some gleams of feeling pure and warm,
Like sunshine on a sky of storm, —
Proofs that the Negro's heart retains
Some nobleness amidst its chains, —
That kindness to the wronged is never
Without its excellent reward, —
Holy to human-kind, and ever
Acceptable to God.
THE SLAVE-SHIPS.
" That fatal, that perfidious bark,
Built i' the eclipse, and rigged with curses
dark."
Milton's Lycidas,
" All ready? " cried the captain ;
" Ay, ay! " the seamen said ;
" Heave up the worthless lubbers, —
The dying and the dead."
Up from the slave-ship's prison
Fierce, bearded heads were thrust :
" Now let the sharks look to it, —
Toss up the dead ones first! "
Corpse after corpse came up, —
Death had been busy there ;
Where every blow is mercy.
Why should the spoiler spare?
Corpse after corpse they cast
Sullenly from the ship.
Yet bloody with the traces
Of fetter-link and whip.
Gloomily stood the captain.
With his arms upon his breast.
With his cold brow sternly knotted,
And his iron lip compressed.
''Are all the dead dogs over?"
Growled through that matted lip, —
" The blind ones are no better,
Let's lighten the good ship."
Hark! from the ship's dark bosom.
The very sounds of hell!
The ringing clank of iron, —
The maniac's short, sharp yell! —
The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled, —
The starving infant's moan, —
The horror of a breaking heart
Poured through a mother's groan.
Up from that loathsome prison
The stricken blind ones came :
Below, had all been darkness, —
Above, was still the same.
Yet the holy breath of heaven
Was sweetly breathing there.
And the heated brow of fever
Cooled in the soft sea air.
^^ Overboard with them, shipmates!"
Cutlass and dirk were plied ;
Fettered and blind, one after one.
Plunged down the vessel's side.
The sabre smote above, —
Beneath, the lean shark lay,
Waiting with wide and bloody jaw
His quick and human prey.
God of the earth ! what cries
Rang upward unto thee?
Voices of agony and blood,
From ship-deck and from sea.
The last dull plunge was heard, —
The last wave caught its stain, —
And the unsated shark looked up
For human hearts in vain.
Red glowed the western waters, —
The setting sun was there,
Scattering alike on wave and cloud
Her fiery mesh of hair.
Amidst a group in blindness,
STANZAS.
57
A solitary eye
Gazed, from the burdened slaver's
deck,
Into that burning sky.
" A storm," spoke out the gazer,
'' Is gathering and at hand, —
Curse on 't — I M give my other eye
For one firm rood of land."
And then he laughed, — but only
His echoed laugh replied, —
For the blinded and the suffering
Alone were at his side.
Night settled on the waters^
And on a stormy heaven,
While fiercely on that lone ship's track
V The thunder-gust was driven.
'^ "A sail ! — thank God, a sail ! " '
And as the helmsman spoke,
Up through the stormy murmur
A shout of gladness broke.
Down came the stranger vessel,
I Unheeding on her way,
I So near, that on the slaver's deck
Fell off her driven spray.
" Ho ! for the love of mercy, —
We 're perishing and blind! "
A wail of utter agony
Came back upon the wind :
" Help 7is ! for we are stricken
With blindness every one ;
Ten days we Ve floated fearfully,
Unnoting star or sun.
Our ship \s the slaver Leon, —
We Ve but a score on board, —
Our slaves are all gone over, —
Help, — for the love of God! ''
On livid brows of agony
The broad red lightning shone, —
But the roar of wind and thunder
Stifled the answering groan
Wailed from the broken waters
A last despairing cry.
As, kindling in the stormy light,
The stranger ship went by.
In the sunny Guadaloupe
A dark-hulled vessel lay, —
With a crew who noted never
The nightfall or the day.
The blossom of the orange
Was white by every stream,
And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird
Were in the warm sunbeam.
And the sky was bright as ever.
And the moonlight slept as well.
On the palm-trees by the hillside.
And the streamlet of the dell :
And the glances of the Creole
Were still as archly deep.
Arid her smiles as full as ever
Of passion and of sleep.
But vain were bird and blossom,
The green earth and the sky.
And the smile of human faces,
To the slaver's darkened eye ;
At the breaking of the morning.
At the star-lit evening time.
O'er a world of light and beauty
Fell the blackness of his crime.
STANZAS.
["The despotism which our fathers
could not bear in their native country is
expiring, and the sword of justice in her
reformed hands has applied its extermi-
nating edge to slavery. Shall the United
States — the free United States, which
could not bear the bonds of a king — cradle
the bondage which a king is abolishing ?
Shall a Republic be less free than a Mon-
archy ? Shall we, in the vigor and buoy-
ancy of our manhood, be less energetic
in righteousness than a kingdom in its
age ? " — jDr. FollerCs Address,
" Genius of America 1 — Spirit of our free
institutions ! — where art thou ? — How art
thou fallen, O Uucifer ! son of the morning,
— how art thou fallen from Heaven ! Hell
from beneath is moved for thee, to meet
thee at thy coming ! -The kings of the
earth cry out to thee. Aha! Aha! — ART
riiou BECOME LIKE UNTO US ! " — Speech
of Samuel J. May.]
58
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Our fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves — in a land of light and law !
Slaves — crouching on the very plains
Where rolled the storm of Free-
dom's war!
A groan from Eutaw's haunted
wood, —
A wail where Camden's martyrs
fell,— .
By every shrine of patriot blood,
From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's
well!
By storied hill and hallowed grot,
By mossy wood and marshy glen,
Whence rang of old the rifle-shot,
And hurrying shout of Marion's
men !
The groan of breaking hearts is
there, —
The falling lash, — the fetter's
clank !
Slaves^ — SLAVES are breathing in
that air,
Which old De Kalb and Sumter
drank !
What, ho! — oitr countrymen in
chains!
The whip on woman's shrinking
flesh !
Our soil yet reddening with the
stains
aught 1
and fresh !
What! mothers from their children
riven !
What ! God's own image bought and
sold!
Americans to market driven.
And bartered as the brute for gold!
Speak! shall their agony of prayer
Come thrilling to our hearts in
vain ?
To us whose fathers scorned to bear
The paltry menace of a chain ;
To us, whose boast is loud and long
Of holy Liberty and Light, —
Say, shall these writhing slaves of
Wrong,
Plead vainly for their plundered
Right?
What! shall we send, with lavish
breath,
Our sympathies across the wave,
Where Manhood, on the field of death.
Strikes for his freedom or a grave?
Shall prayers go up^ and hymns be
sung
For Greece, the Moslem fetter
spurning,
And millions hail with pen and
tongue
Our lio:ht on all her altars burning:?
Shall Belgium feel, and gallant
France,
By Vendome's pile and Schoen-
brun's wall,
And Poland, gasping on her lance.
The impulse of our cheering call?
And shall the slave, beneath our
eye,
Clank o'er our fields his hateful
chain?
And toss his fettered arms on high.
And groan for Freedom's gift, in
vain ?
O, say, shall Prussia's banner be
A refuge for the stricken slave?
And shall the Russian serf go free
By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave?
And shall the wintry-bosomed Dane
Relax the iron hand of pride,
And bid his bondmen cast the chain, '
From fettered soul and limb, aside?
Shall every flap of England's flag
Proclaim that all around are free.
From *' farthest Ind " to each blue
crag
That beetles o'er the Western Sea?
And shall we scofl" at Europe's kings.
When Freedom's fire is dim with
us.
And round our country's altar clings
THE YANKEE GIKE.
59
The damning shade of Slavery's
curse?
Go — let us ask of Constantine
To loose his grasp on Poland's
throat ;
And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line
To spare the struggling Suliote, —
Will not the scorching answer come
From turbaned Turk, and scornful
Russ :
" Go, loose your fettered slaves at
home,
Then turn, and ask the like of us ! ^'
Just God! and shall we calmly rest,
The Christian's scorn, — the hea-
then's mirth, —
Content to live the lingering jest
And by-word of a mocking Earth ?
Shall our own glorious land retain
That curse which Europe scorns to
bear?
Shall our own brethren drag the
chain
Which not even Russia's menials
wear?
Up, then, in Freedom's manly part.
From gray beard eld to fiery youth.
And on the nation's naked heart
Scatter the living coals of Truth !
Up, — while ye slumber, deeper yet
The shadow of our fame is grow-
ing! ^
Up, — while ye pause, our sun may
set
In blood, around our altars flowing !
Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes
forth, —
The gathered wrath of God and
man, —
Like that w^hich wasted Egypt's earth.
When hail and fire above it ran.
Hear ye no warnings in the air?
Feel ye no earthquake underneath ?
Up. — up! why will ye slumber where
The sleeper only wakes in death?
Up now for Freedom ! — not in strife
Like that your sterner fathers saw, —
The awful waste of human life, —
The glory and the guilt of war :
But break the chain, — the yoke re-
move.
And smite to earth Oppression's rod.
With those mild arms of Truth and
Love,
Made mighty through the living
God!
Down let the shrine of Moloch sink,
And leave no traces where it stood ;
Nor longer let its idol drink
His daily cup of human blood ;
But rear another altar there.
To Truth and Love and Mercy
given,
And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's
prayer,
Shall call an answer down from
Heaven!
THE YANKEE GIRL.
She sings by her wheel at that low
cottage-door.
Which the long evening shadow is
stretching before.
With a music as sweet as the music
which seems
Breathed softly and faint in the ear
of our dreams!
How brilliant and mirthful the light
of her eye.
Like a star glancing out from the
blue of the sky !
And lightly and freely her dark tresses
play
O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely
as they!
W^ho comes in his pride to that low^
cottage-door, —
The haughty and rich to the humble
and poor?
Go
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
'T is the great Southern planter, —
the master who waves
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds
of slaves.
" Nay, Ellen, — for shame! Let those
Yankee fools spin,
Who would pass for our slaves with a
change of their skin ;
Let them toil as they will at the loom
or the wheel.
Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar
to feel!
"■ But thou art too lovely and precious
a gem
To be bound to their burdens and
sullied by them, —
For shame, Ellen, shame, — cast thy
bondage aside,
And away to the South, as my bless-
ing and pride.
" O, come where no winter thy foot-
steps can wrong.
But where flowers are blossoming all
the year long.
Where the shade of the palm-tree is
over my home.
And the lemon and orange are white
in their bloom!
" O, come to my home, where my ser-
vants shall all
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy
call ;
They shall heed thee as mistress with
trembling and awe.
And each wish of thy heart shall be felt
as a law."
O, could ye have seen her — that pride
of our girls —
Arise and cast back the dark wealth
of her curls.
With a scorn in her eye which the
gazer could feel.
And a glance like the sunshine that
flashes on steel!
'' Go back, haughty Southron ! thy
treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts
thou hast sold ;
Thy home may be lovely, but round it
I hear
The crack of the whip and the foot-
steps of fear!
" And the sky of thy South may be
brighter than ours.
And greener thy landscapes, and fairer
thy flowers ;
But dearer the blast round our moun-
tains which raves.
Than the sweet summer zephyr which
breathes over slaves!
" Full low at thy bidding thy negroes
may kneel,
With the iron of bondage on spirit
and heel ;
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner
would be
In fetters with them, than in freedom
with thee!"
TO W. L. G.
Chajvipion of those who groan be-
neath
Oppression's iron hand :
In view of penury, hate, and death,
I see thee fearless stand.
Still bearing up thy lofty brow,
In the steadfast strength of truth,
In manhood sealing well the vow
And promise of thy youth.
Go on, — for thou hast chosen well ;
On in the strength of God!
Long as one human heart shall swell \
Beneath the tyrant's rod.
Speak in a slumbering nation's ear,
As thou hast ever spoken,
Until the dead in sin shall hear, —
The fetter's link be broken!
THE HUNTERS OF MEN.
6i
1 love thee with a brother's love,
I feel my pulses thrill,
To mark thy spirit soar above
The cloud of human ill.
My heart hath leaped to answer thine,
And echo back thy words.
As leaps the w^arriors at the shine
And flash of kindred swords!
They tell me thou art rash and vain —
A searcher after fame ;
That thou art striving but to gain
A long-enduring name ;
That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand
And steeled the Afric's heart,
To shake aloft his vengeful brand.
And rend his chain apart.
Have I not know^n thee well, and read
Thy mighty purpose long?
And watched the trials which have
made
Thy human spirit strong?
And shall the slanderer's demon breath
Avail with one like me,
To dim the sunshine of my faith
And earnest trust in thee?
Go on, — the dagger^s point may glare
Amid thy pathway's gloom, —
The fate which sternly threatens there
Is glorious martyrdom !
Then onward with a martyr's zeal ;
And wait thy sure reward
When man to man no more shall kneel.
And God alone be Lord!
1833.
SONG OF THE FREE.
Pride of New England!
Soul of our fathers!
Shrink we all craven-like
When the storm gathers?
What though the tempest be
Over us lowering.
Where 's the New-Englander
Shamefully cowering?
Graves green and holy
Around us are lying, —
1836.
Free were the sleepers all.
Living and dying!
Back with the Southerner's
Padlocks and scourges!
Go, — let him fetter down
Ocean's free surges!
Go, — let him silence
Winds, clouds, and waters, -
Never New England's own
Free sons and daughters!
Free as our rivers are
Ocean-ward going, —
Free as the breezes are
Over us blowing.
Up to our altars, then,
Haste we, and summon
Courage and loveliness,
Manhood and woman!
Deep let our pledges be :
Freedom forever!
Truce with oppression,
Never, oh! never!
By our own birthright-gift,
Granted of Heaven, —
Freedom for heart and lip,
Be the pledge given !
If we have whispered truth,
Whisper no longer ;
Speak as the tempest does,
Sterner and stronger ;
Still be the tones of truth
Louder and firmer.
Startling the haughty South
With the deep murmur ;
God and our charter's right,
Freedom forever!
Truce with oppression,
Never, oh! never!
THE HUNTERS OF MEN.
Have ye heard of our hunting, o'er
mountain and glen.
Through cane-brake and forest, — the
huntinor of men ?
r,2
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
The lords of our land to this hunting
have gone,
As the fox-hunter follows the sound
of the horn ;
Hark! — the cheer and the hallo! —
the crack of the whip,
And the yell of the hound as he
fastens his grip !
All blithe are our hunters, and noble
their match, —
Though hundreds are caught, there
are millions to catch.
So speed to their hunting, o'er moun-
tain and glen,
Through cane-brake and forest, — the
huntino^ of men !
Gay luck to our hunters ! — how nobly
they ride
In the glow of their zeal, and the
strength of their pride ! —
The priest with his cassock flung back
on the wind.
Just screening the politic statesman
behind, —
The saint and the sinner, with cursing
and prayer, —
The drunk and the sober, ride merrily
there.
And woman, — kind woman, — wife,
widow, and maid.
For the good of the hunted, is lending
her aid :
Her foot's in the stirrup, her hand on
the rein.
How blithely she rides to the hunting
of men !
O, goodly and grand is our hunting
to see.
In this '-land of the brave and this
home of the free."
Priest, warrior, and statesman, from
Georgia to Maine,
All mounting the saddle, — all grasp-
ing the rein, —
Right merrily hunting the black man,
whose sin
Is the curl of his hair and the hue of
his skin !
Woe, now, to the hunted who turns
him at bay !
Will our hunters be turned from their
purpose and prey ?
Will their hearts fail within them ? —
their nerves tremble, when
All roughly they ride to the hunting
of men ?
Ho ! — ALMS for our hunters ! all
weary and faint,
Wax the curse of the sinner and
prayer of the saint.
The horn is wound faintly, — the
echoes are still,
Over cane-brake and river, and forest
and hill.
Haste, — alms for our hunters! the
hunted once more
Have turned from their flight with
their backs to the shore :
What right have they here in the
home of the white.
Shadowed o^er by ojir banner of Free-
dom and Right ?
Ho ! — alms for the hunters ! or never
again
Will they ride in their pomp to the
huntinor of men I
Alms, — alms for our hunters ! why
will ye delay,
When their pride and their glory are
melting away ?
The parson has turned ; for, on charge
of his own.
Who goeth a warfare, or hunting,
alone?
The politic statesman looks back with
a sigh, —
There is doubt in his heart, — there is
fear in his eye.
O, haste, lest that doubting and fear
shall prevail.
And the head of his steed take the
place of the tail.
CLERICAL OPrRESSORS.
^3
O, haste, ere he leave us ! for who will
ride then,
p^or pleasure or gain, to the hunting
of men ?
1835-
CLERICAL OPPRESSORS.
[In the report of the celebrated pro-
slavery meeting in Charleston, S. C, on
the 4th of the 9th month, 1835, pubhshecl in
tlie Courier of that city, it is stated, " The
CLERGY of all deiiominatiojis attended in
a body, LENDING THEIR SANCTION TO THE
PROCEEDINGS, and adding by their pres-
ence to the impressive character of the
scene! "]
Just God ! — and these are they
Who minister at thine altar, God of
Right !
Men who their hands with prayer and
blessing lay
On Israel's Ark of light!
What! preach and kidnap men?
Give thanks, — and rob thy own
afflicted poor ?
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door?
What ! servants of thy own
Merciful Son, who came to seek and
save
The homeless and the outcast, — fet-
tering down
The tasked and plundered slave !
Pilate and Herod, friends!
Chief priests and rulers, as of old,
combine !
Just God and holy! is that church,
which lends
Strength to the spoiler, thine?
Paid hypocrites, who turn
Judgment aside, and rob the Holy
Book
Of those high words of truth which
search and burn
In warning and rebuke ;
Feed fat, ye locusts, feed !
And, in your tasselled pulpits, thank
the Lord
That, from the toiling bondman's
utter need,
Ye pile your own full board.
How long, O Lord! how long
Shall such a priesthood barter truth
away,
And in thy name, for robbery and
wrong
At thy own altars pray ?
Is not thy hand stretched forth
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and
smite ?
Shall not the living God of all the
earth.
And heaven above, do right?
Woe, then, to all who grind
Tlieir brethren of a common Father
down!
To all who plunder from the immortal
mind
Its bright and glorious crown!
Woe to the priesthood ! woe
To those whose hire is with the price
of blood, —
Perverting, darkening, changing, as
they go.
The searching truths of God!
Their glory and their might
Shall perish ; and their very names
shall be
Vile before all the people, in the
light
Of a world's liberty.
O, speed the moment on
When Wrong shall cease, and Lib-
erty and Love
And Truth and Right throughout the
eartli be known
As in their home above.
64
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.
[In a late publication of L. T. Tasistro, —
" Random Shots and Southern Breezes," —
is a description of a slave auction at New
Orleans, at which the auctioneer recom-
mended the woman on the stand as " A
GOOD Christian ! "]
A Christian! going, gone!
Who bids for God^s own image ? — for
his grace,
Which that poor victim of the market-
place
Hath in her suffering won ?
My God ! can such things be ?
Hast thou not said that whatsoe'er is
done
Unto thy weakest and thy humblest
one
Is even done to thee?
In that sad victim, then,
Child of thy pitying love, I see thee
stand, —
Once more the jest-word of a mocking
band.
Bound, sold, and scourged again!
A Christian up for sale !
Wet with her blood your whips, o''er-
task her frame.
Make her life loathsome wdth your
wrong and shame,
Her patience shall not fail !
A heathen hand might deal
Back on your heads the gathered
wrong of years :
But her low, broken prayer and
nightly tears.
Ye neither heed nor feel.
Con well thy lesson o'er.
Thou priideiit teacher, — tell the toil-
ing slave
No dangerous tale of Him who came
to save
The outcast and the poor.
But wisely shut the ray
Of God's free Gospel from her simple
heart,
And to her darkened mind alone
impart
One stern command, — Obey!
So shalt thou deftly raise
The market price of human flesh ;
and while
On thee, their pampered guest, the
planters smile,
Thy church shall praise.
Grave, reverend men shall tell
From Northern pulpits how thy work
was blest.
While in that vile South Sodom, first
and best,
Thy poor disciples sell.
O, shame! the Moslem thrall.
Who, with his master, to the Prophet
kneels,
While turning to the sacred Kebla
feels
His fetters break and fall.
Cheers for the turbaned Bey
Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath
torn
The dark slave-dungeons open, and
hath borne
Their inmates into day ;
But our poor slave in vain
Turns to the Christian shrine his
aching eyes, —
Its rites will only swell his market
price,
And rivet on his chain.
God of all right ! how long
Shall priestly robbers at thine altar
stand,
Lifting in prayer to thee, the bloody
hand
And haughty brow of wrong?
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
65
O, from the fields of cane,
From the low rice-swamp, from the
• trader's cell, —
From the black slave-ship's foul and
loathsome hell.
And coffle's weary chain, —
Hoarse, horrible, and strong,
Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry.
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,
How LONG, O God, how long ?
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
Is this the land our fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to
win ?
Is this the soil whereon they moved ?
Are these the graves they slumber
in?
Are we the sons by whom are borne
The mantles which the dead have
worn ?
And shall we crouch above these
graves.
With craven soul and fettered lip?
Yoke in with marked and branded
slaves.
And tremble at the driver's whip?
Bend to the earth our pHant knees,
And speak — but as our masters
please ?
Shall outraged Nature cease to feel?
Shall Mercy\s tears no longer flow?
Shall ruffian threats of cord and
steel, —
The dungeon's gloom, — the assas-
sin's blow,
Turn back the spirit roused to save
The Truth, our Country, and the
Slave?
Of human skulls that shrine was made.
Round which the priests of Mexico
Before their loathsome idol prayed ; —
Is Freedom's altar fashioned so?
And must we yield to Freedom's God,
As offering meet, the negro's blood?
Shall tongues be mute, when deeds
are wTought
Which well might shame extremest
hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant
thought ?
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed?— shall Truth
' succumb ?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be
dumb?
No ; — by each spot of haunted
ground,
' Where Freedom weeps her chil-
dren's fall, —
By Plymouth's rock, and Bunker's
mound, —
By Griswold's stained and shattered
wall, —
By Warren's ghost, — by Langdon's
shade, —
By all the memories of our dead!
By their enlarging souls, which burst
The bands and fetters round them
set, —
By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed
Within our inmost bosoms, yet, —
By all above, around, below.
Be ours the indignant answer, — NO !
No ; — guided by our country's laws.
For truth, and right, and suffering
man.
Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause.
As Christians 7nay^ — as freemen
can !
Still pouring on unwilling ears
That truth oppression only fears.
What! shall we guard our neighbor
still,
While woman shrieks beneath his
rod.
And while he tramples down at will
The imao^e of a common God!
66
VOICES OF frep:dom.
Shall watch and ward be round him
set.
Of Northern nerve and bayonet?
And shall we know and share with
him
The danger and the growing
shame?
And see our Freedom's light grow dim.
Which should have filled the world
with flame?
And, writhing, feel, where'er we turn,
A world s reproach around us burn ?
Is 't not enough that this is borne ?
And asks our haughty neighbor
more ?
Must fetters which his slaves have
worn
Clank round the Yankee farmer's
door?
Must he be told, beside his plough.
What he must speak, and when, and
how?
Must he be told his freedom stands
On Slavery's dark foundations
strong, —
On breaking hearts and fettered
hands,
On robbery, and crime, and wrong?
That all his fathers taught is vain, —
That Freedom's emblem is the chain ?
Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn?
False, foul, profane ! Go, — teach
as well
Of holy Truth from Falsehood born!
Of Heaven refreshed by airs from
Hell!
Of Virtue in the arms of Vice !
Of Demons planting Paradise!
Rail on, then, "brethren of the
South." —
Ye shall not hear the truth the
less ; —
No seal is on the Yankee's mouth,
No fetter on the Yankee's press!
From our Green Mountains to the sea,
One voice shall thunder, — We are
free!
LINES,
WRITTEN ON READING THE MESSAGE
OF GOVERNOR RITNER, OF PENN-
SYLVANIA, 1836.
Thank God for the token! — one lip
is still free, —
One spirit untrammelled, — unbend-
ing one knee !
Like the oak of the mountain, deep-
rooted and firm,
Erect, when the multitude bends to
the storm ;
When traitors to Freedom, and
Honor, and God,
Are bowed at an Idol polluted with
blood;
When the recreant North has forgot-
ten her trust.
And the lip of her honor is low in the
dust, —
Thank God, that one arm from the
shackle has broken!
Thank God, that one man as 2i free-
man has spoken!
O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has
been blown !
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the mur-
mur has gone !
To the land of the South, — of the
charter and chain, —
Of Liberty sweetened with Slavery's
pain ;
Where the cant of Democracy dwells
on the lips
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders
of whips !
Where ^' chivalric'' honor means really
no more
Than scourging of women, and rob-
bing the poor!
LINES.
67
Where tlie Moloch of Slavery sitteth
on high.
And the words which he utters, are —
Worship, or die!
Right onward, O speed it! Wherever
the blood
Of the wronged and the guiltless is
crying to God ;
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pin-
ing ;
Wherever the lash of the driver is
twining ;
Wherever from kindred, torn rudely
apart,
Comes the sorrowful wail of the
broken of heart ;
Wherever the shackles of tyranny
bind,
In silence and darkness, the God-
given mind ;
There, God speed it onward! — its
truth will be felt, —
The bonds shall be loosened, — the
iron shall melt!
And O, will the land where the free
soul of Penn
Still lingers and breathes over moun-
tain and glen, —
Will the land where a Benezet's
spirit went forth
To the peeled, and the meted, and
outcast of Earth, —
Where the words of the Charter of
Liberty first
From the soul of the sage and the
patriot burst, —
Where first for the wronged and the
weak of their kind,
The Christian and statesman their
efforts combined, —
Will that land of the free and the
good wear a chain ?
Will the call to the rescue of Freedom
be vain ?
No, Ritner! — her "Friends" at thy
warnino; shall stand
Erect for the truth, like their ances-
tral band ;
Forgetting the feuds and the strife of
past time.
Counting coldness injustice, and si-
lence a crime ;
Turning back from the cavil of cfeeds,
to unite
Once again for the poor in defence of
the Right;
Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full
tide of Wrong,
Overwhelmed, but not borne on its
surges along ;
Unappalled by the danger, the shame,
and the pain.
And counting each trial for Truth as
their gain!
And that bold-hearted yeomanry, hon-
est and true.
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its
due ;
Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert
with thine.
On the banks of Swetara, the songs
of the Rhine, —
The German-born pilgrims, who first
dared to brave
The scorn of the proud in the cause
of the slave : —
Will the sons of such men yield the
lords of the South
One brow for the brand, — for the
padlock one mouth ?
They cater to tyrants? — They rivet
the chain.
Which their fathers smote off, on the
negro again?
No, never ! — one voice, like the sound
in the cloud.
When the roar of the storm waxes
loud and more loud.
Wherever the foot of the freeman hath
pressed
From the Delaware's marge to the
Lake of the West,
On the South-going breezes shaU
deepen and grow
68
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Till the land it sweeps over shall
tremble below!
The voice of a people, — uprisen, —
awake, —
Pennsylvania's watchword, with Free-
dom at stake,
Thrilling up from each valley, flung
down from each height,
'•^GuR Country and Liberty! —
God for the Right! "
THE PASTORAL LETTER.
So, this is all, — the utmost reach
Of priestly power the mind to fetter !
When laymen think — when women
preach —
A war of words — a " Pastoral Let-
ter! "
Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes!
Was it thus with those, your prede-
cessors.
Who sealed with racks, and fire, and
ropes
Their loving-kindness to transgres-
sors?
A ^^ Pastoral Letter," grave and dull —
Alas ! in hoof and horns and fea-
tures.
How different is your Brookfield bull,
From him who bellows from St.
Peter's !
Your pastoral rights and powers from
harm.
Think ye, can words alone preserve
them?
Your wiser fathers taught the arm
And sword of temporal power to
serve them.
O, glorious days, — when Church and
State
Were wedded by your spiritual fa-
thers J
And on submissive shoulders sat
Your Wilsons and your Cotton Ma-
thers.
No vile '^ itinerant " then could mar
The beauty of your tranquil Zion,
But at his peril of the scar
Of hangman's whip and branding-
iron.
Then, wholesome laws relieved the
Church
Of heretic and mischief-maker.
And priest and bailiff joined in search.
By turns, of Papist, witch, and Qua-
ker!
The stocks were at each church's
door.
The gallows stood on Boston Com-
mon,
A Papist's ears the pillory bore, —
The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!
Your fathers dealt not as ye deal
With ^^ non-professing " frantic
teachers ;
They bored the tongue with red-hot
steel.
And flayed the backs of ^^ female
preachers."
Old Newbury, had her fields a tongue.
And Salem's streets could tell their
story,
Of fainting woman dragged along,
Gashed by the whip, accursed and
gory!
And will ye ask me, why this taunt
Of memories sacred from the
scorner ?
And why with reckless hand I plant
A nettle on the graves ye honor?
Not to reproach New England's dead
This record from the past I summon.
Of manhood to the scaffold led.
And suffering and heroic woman.
No, — for yourselves alone, I turn
The pages of intolerance over.
That, in their spirit, dark and stern.
Ye haply may your own discover!
For, if ye claim the " pastoral right,"
To silence Freedom's voice of warn-
LINES.
69
And from your precincts shut the light
Of Freedom's day around ye dawn-
ing;
If when an earthquake voice of power,
And signs in earth and heaven, are
showing
That forth, in its appointed hour.
The Spirit of the Lord is going!
And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light
On kindred, tongue, and people
breaking.
Whose slumbering millions, at the
sight,
In glory and in strength are waking!
When for the sighing of the poor.
And for the needy, God hath risen.
And chains are breaking, and a door
Is opening for the souls in prison!
If then ye would, with puny hands,
Arrest the very work of Heaven,
And bind anew the evil bands
Which God's right arm of power
hath riven, —
What marvel that, in many a mind,
Those darker deeds of bigot mad-
ness
Are closely with your own combined.
Yet ^'less in anger than in sad-
ness " ?
What marvel, if the people learn
To claim the right of free opinion?
What marvel, if at times they spurn
The ancient yoke of your dominion ?
A glorious remnant linger yet.
Whose lips are wet at Freedom's
fountains.
The coming of whose welcome feet
Is beautiftil upon our mountains!
Men, who the gospel tidings bring
Of Liberty and Love forever.
Whose joy is an abiding spring.
Whose peace is as a gentle river!
But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale
Of Carolina's high-souled daughters.
Which echoes here the mournful wail
Of sorrow from Edisto's waters,
Close while ye may the public ear, —
With malice vex, with slander
wound them, —
The pure and good shall throng to
hear,
And tried and manly hearts sur-
round them.
O, ever may the power w^hich led
Their way to such a fiery trial.
And strengthened womanhood to tread
The wine-press of such self-denial,
Be round them in an evil land.
With wisdom and with strength
from Heaven,
With Miriam's voice, and Judith's
hand.
And Deborah's song, for triumph
given!
And what are ye who strive with God
Against the ark of his salvation.
Moved by the breath of prayer abroad,
With blessings for a dying nation?
What, but the stubble and the hay
To perish, even as flax consuming.
With all that bars his glorious way.
Before the brightness of his coming?
And thou, sad Angel, who so long
Hast waited for the glorious token.
That Earth from all her bonds of
wrong
To liberty and light has broken, —
Angel of Freedom! soon to thee
The sounding trumpet shall be
given.
And over Earth's full jubilee
Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven!
LINES,
WRITTEN FOR THE MEETING OF THE
ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, AT CHAT-
HAM STREET CHAPEL, N.Y., HELD
ON THE 4TH OF THE 7TH MONTH,
1834.
O Thou, whose presence went before
Our fathers in their weary way,
70
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
As with thy chosen moved of yore
The fire by night, the cloud by day!
When from each temple of the free,
A nation's song ascends to Heaven,
Most Holy Father! unto thee
May not our humble prayer be
given?
Thy children all, — though hue and
form
Are varied in thine own good will, —
With thy own holy breathings warm.
And fashioned in thine image still.
We thank thee, Father! — hill and
plain
Around us wave their fruits once
more.
And clustered vine, and blossomed
grain.
Are bending round each cottage
door.
And peace is here ; and hope and
love
Are round us as a mantle thrown,
And unto Thee, supreme above,
The knee of prayer is bowed alone.
But O, for those this day can bring.
As unto us, no joyful thrill, —
For those who, under Freedom's wing.
Are bound in Slavery's fetters still :
For those to whom thy living word
Of light and love is never given, —
For those whose ears have never heard
The promise and the hope of
Heaven!'
For broken heart, and clouded mind,
Whereon no human mercies fall, —
O, be thy gracious love inclined,
Who, as a Father, pitiest all !
And grant, O Father! that the time
Of Earth's deliverance may be near.
When every land and tongue and
clime
The message of thy love shall
hear, —
When, smitten as with fire from
heaven,
The captive's chain shall sink in
dust.
And to his fettered soul be given
The glorious freedom of the just!
LINES,
WRITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF
THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF BRIT-
ISH EMANCIPATION AT THE BROAD-
AVAY TABERNACLE, N.Y., '' FIRST OF
AUGUST," 1837.
O Holy Father! — just and true
Are all thy works and words and
ways,
And unto thee alone are due
Thanksgiving and eternal praise!
As children of thy gracious care.
We veil the eye, we bend the knee,
With broken words of praise and
prayer.
Father and God, we come to thee.
For thou hast heard, O God of Right,
The sighing of the island slave ;
And stretched for him the arm of
might,
Not shortened that it could not save.
The laborer sits beneath his vine,
The shackled soul and hand are
free, —
Thanksgiving! — for the work is
thine !
Praise ! — for the blessing is of thee !
And O, we feel thy presence here, —
Thy awful arm in judgment bare!
Thine eye hath seen the bondman's
tear, —
Thine ear hath heard the bondman's
prayer.
Praise ! — for the pride of man is low,
The counsels of the wise are naught,
LINES.
71
The fountains of repentance flow ;
What hath our God in mercy
wrought ?
Speed on thy work, Lord God of
Hosts !
And when the bondman\s chain is
riven,
And swells from all our guilty coasts
The anthem of the free to Heaven,
O, not to those whom thou hast led,
As with thy cloud and fire before,
But unto thee, in fear and dread,
Be praise and glory evermore.
LINES,
WRITTEN FOR THE ANNIVERSARY
CELEBRATION OF THE FIRST OF
AUGUST, AT MILTON, 1 846.
A FEW brief years have passed away
Since Britain drove her million
slaves
Beneath the tropic's fiery ray :
God willed their freedom; and to-day
Life blooms above those island
graves !
He spoke! across the Carib Sea,
We heard the clash of breaking
chains,
And felt the heart-throb of the free.
The first, strong pulse of liberty
Which thrilled along the bond-
man's veins.
Though long delayed, and far, and
slow,
The Briton's triumph shall be
ours :
Wears slavery here a prouder brow
Than that which twelve short years
ago
Scowled darkly from her island
bowers ?
Mighty alike for good or ill
With mother-land, we fully share
The Saxon strength, — the nerve of
steel, —
The tireless energy of will, —
The power to do, the pride to
dare.
What she has done can we not do?
Our hour and men are both at
hand ;
The blast which Freedom's angel
blew
O'er her green islands, echoes
through
Each valley of our forest land.
Hear it, old Europe! we have sworn
The death of slavery. — When it
falls.
Look to your vassals in their turn.
Your poor dumb millions, crushed
and worn,
Your prisons and your palace
walls !
O kingly mockers! — scoffing show
What deeds in Freedom's name we
do ;
Yet know that every taunt 3'e throw
Across the waters, goads our slow
Progression towards the right and
true.
Not always shall 3'our outraged poor.
Appalled by democratic crime,
Grind as their fathers ground be-
fore, —
The hour which sees our prison door
Swing wide shall be their triumph
time.
On then, my brothers! every blow
Ye deal is felt the wide earth
through ;
Whatever here uplifts the low
Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe,
Blesses the Old World through the
New.
Take heart! The promised hour
draws near, —
72
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
I hear the downward beat of wings,
And Freedom^s trumpet sounding
clear :
"Joy to the people! — woe and fear
To new-world tyrants, old-world
kings!''
THE FAREWELL
OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO
HER DAUGHTERS SOLD INTO
SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
Gone, gone, — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless
swings,
Where the noisome insect stings.
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air, —
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them.
There no mother's ear can hear
them ;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash, *
Shall a mother's kindness* bless
them.
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
Gone, gone, — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
O, when weary, sad, and slow.
From the fields at night they go.
Faint with toil, and racked wdth pain,
To their cheerless homes again,
There no brother's voice shall greet
them, —
There no father's welcome meet
them.
Gone, gone, — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play, —
From the cool spring where they
drank, —
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank, —
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there, —
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and
lone, —
Toiling through the weary day.
And at night the spoiler's prey.
O that they had earlier died.
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er.
And the fetter galls no more!
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone, — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth, —
By the bruised reed He spareth, —
O, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known.
Still their hope and refuge prove.
With a more than mother's love.
Gone, gone, — sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters, —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters !
THE WORLD'S CONVENTION.
n
THE MORAL WARFARE.
When Freedom, on her natal day,
Within her war-rocked cradle lay,
An iron race around her stood,
Baptized her infant brow in blood ;
And, through the storm which round
her swept,
Their constant ward and watching
kept.
Then, where our quiet herds repose,
The roar of baleful battle rose.
And brethren of a common tongue
To mortal strife as tigers sprung,
And every gift on Freedom's shrine
Was man for beast, and blood for
wine!
Our fathers to their graves have
gone;
Their strife is past, — their triumph
won ;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honored place, —
A moral warfare with the crime
And folly of an evil time.
So let it be. In God's own might
We gird us for the coming fight.
And, strong in Him whose cause is
ours
In conflict with unholy powers,
We grasp the weapons He has
given, —
The Light, and Truth, and Love of
Heaven.
THE WORLD'S CONVENTION
OF THE FRIENDS OF EMANCIPATION,
HELD IN LONDON IN 1840.
Yes, let them gather! — Summon
forth
The pledged philanthropy of Earth,
From every land, whose hills have
heard
The bugle blast of Freedom wak-
ing;
Or shrieking of her symbol-bird
From out his cloudy eyrie break-
ing:
Where Justice hath one worshipper.
Or truth one altar built to her ;
Where'er a human eye is weeping
O'er wrongs which Earth s sad
children know, —
Where'er a single heart is keeping
Its prayerflil watch with human
woe :
Thence let them come, and greet
each other.
And know in each a friend and
brother!
Yes, let them come ! from each green
vale
Where England's old baronial
halls
Still bear upon their storied walls
The grim crusader's rusted mail.
Battered by Paynim spear and brand
On Malta's rock or Syria's sand!
And mouldering pennon-staves once
set
Within the soil of Palestine,
By Jordan and Genessaret ;
Or, borne with England's battle
line.
O'er Acre's shattered turrets stoop-
ing,
X)r, midst the camp their banners
drooping,
With dews from hallowed Hermon
wet,
A holier summons now is given
Than that gray hermit's voice of
old.
Which unto all the winds of heaven
The banners of the Cross unrolled !
Not for the long-deserted shrine, —
Not for the dull unconscious sod.
Which tells not by one lingering sign
That there the hope of Israel
trod ; —
But for that truth, for which alone
In pilgrim eyes are sanctified
74
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
The garden moss, the mountain stone,
Whereon his holy sandals pressed, —
The fountain which his lip hath
blessed, —
Whatever hath touched his garment's
hem
At Bethany or Bethlehem,
Or Jordan's river-side.
For Freedom, in the name of Him
Who came to raise Earth's drooping
poor.
To break the chain from every limb,
The bolt from every prison door !
For these, o'er all the earth hath
passed
An ever-deepening trumpet blast,
As if an angePs breath had lent
Its vigor to the instrument.
And Wales, from Snowden's mountain
wall.
Shall startle at that thrilling call,
As if she heard her bards again ;
And Erin's '' harp on Tara's wall "
Give out its ancient strain.
Mirthful and sweet, yet sad withal, —
The melody which Erin loves.
When o'er that harp, ""mid bursts of
gladness
And slogan cries and lyke-wake sad-
ness.
The hand of her O'Connell moves!
Scotland, from lake and tarn and rill,
And mountain hold, and heathery
hill,
Shall catch and echo back the
note.
As if she heard upon her air
Once more her Cameronian's prayer
And song of Freedom float.
And cheering echoes shall reply
From each remote dependency.
Where Britain's mighty sway is
known,
In tropic sea or frozen zone ;
Where'er her sunset flag is furling,
Or morning gun-fire's smoke is curl-
ing ; .
From Indian Bengal's groves of palm
And rosy fields and gales of balm,
Where Eastern pomp and power are
rolled
Through regal Ava's gates of gold ;
And from the lakes and ancient woods
And dim Canadian solitudes.
Whence, sternly from her rocky
throne.
Queen of the North, Quebec lopks
down ;
And from those bright and ransomed
Isles
Where all unwonted Freedom smiles,
And the dark laborer still retains
The scar of slavery's broken chains!
From the hoar Alps, which sentinel
The gateways of the land of Tell,
Where morning's keen and earliest
glance
On Jura's rocky wall is thrown,
And from the olive bowers of France
And vine groves garlanding the
Rhone, —
" Friends of the Blacks," as true and
tried
As those who stood by Oge's side.
And heard the Haytien's tale of wrong,
Shall gather at that summons strong, —
Broglie, Passy, and him whose song
Breathed over Syria's holy sod.
And in the paths which Jesus trod,
And murmured midst the hills which
hem
Crownless and sad Jerusalem,
Hath echoes wheresoe'er the tone
Of Israel's prophet-lyre is known.
Still let them come, — from Quito's
walls.
And from the Orinoco^s tide.
From Lima's Inca-haunted halls.
From Sante Fe and Yucatan, —
Men who by swart Guerrero's side
Proclaimed the deathless rights of
MAN,
Broke every bond and fetter off,
And hailed in every sable serf
A free and brother Mexican !
Chiefs who across the Andes' chain
THE WORLD'S CONVENTION.
75
Have followed Freedom's flowing
pennon,
And seen on Jimin's fearful plain,
Glare o'er the broken ranks of Spain
The fire-burst of Bolivar's cannon!
And Hayti, from her mountain land,
Shall send the sons of those who
hurled
Defiance from her blazing strand, —
The war-gage from her Petion's hand,
Alone against a hostile world.
Nor all unmindful, thou, the while.
Land of the dark and mystic Nile! — ■
Thy Moslem mercy yet may shame
All tyrants of a Christian name, —
r^ When in the shade of Gizeh's pile,
Or, where from Abyssinian hills
El Gerek's upper fountain fills,
Or where from Mountains of the Moon
El Abiad bears his watery boon.
Where'er thy lotus blossoms swim
W^ithin their ancient hallowed
waters, —
Where'er is heard the Coptic hymn,
Or song of Nubia's sable daugh-
ters, —
The curse of slavery and the crime.
Thy bequest from remotest time.
At thy dark Mehemet's decree
Forevermore shall pass from thee ;
And chains forsake each captive's
limb
Of all those tribes, whose hills around
Have echoed back the cymbal sound
And victor horn of Ibrahim.
And thou whose glory and whose
crime
To earth's remotest bound and clime.
In mingled tones of awe and scorn.
The echoes of a world have borne.
My country! glorious at thy birth,
A day-star flashing brightly forth, —
The herald-sign of P^reedom's
dawn !
O, who could dream that saw thee
then.
And watched thy rising from afar,
That vapors from oppression's fen
Would cloud the upward tending
star ?
Or, that earth's tyrant powers, which
heard.
Awe-struck, the shout which hailed
thy dawning,
Would rise so soon, prince, peer, and
king,
To mock thee with their welcoming.
Like Hades when her thrones were
stirred
To greet the down-cast Star of
Morning!
" Aha! and art thou fallen thus?
Art THOU become as one of 7is ? "
Land of my fathers ! — there will stand.
Amidst that world-assembled band,
Those owning thy maternal claim
Unweakened by thy crime and
shame, —
The sad reprovers of thy wrong, —
The children thou hast spurned so
long.
Still with affection's fondest yearning
To their unnatural mother turning.
No traitors they! — but tried and leal,
Whose own is but thy general weal.
Still blending with the patriot's zeal
The Christian's love for human kind,
To caste and climate unconfined.
A holy gathering! — peaceful all :
No threat of war, — no savage call
Forvengeance on an erring brother;
Rut in their stead the godlike plan
To teach the brotherhood of man
To love and reverence one another.
As sharers of a common blood.
The children of a common God! —
Yet, even at its lightest word.
Shall Slavery's darkest depths be
stirred :
Spain, watching from herMoro's keep
Her slave-ships traversing the deep.
And Rio, in her strength and pride.
Lifting, along her mountain-side,
Her snowy battlements and towers, —
Her lemon-groves and tropic bowers,
With bitter hate and sullen fear
76
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Its freedom-giving voice shall hear ;
And where my country's flag is flow-
ing,
On breezes from Mount Vernon blow-
ing
Above the Nation's council halls.
Where Freedom's praise is loud and
long,
While close beneath the outward
w^alls
The driver plies his reeking thong, —
The hammer of the man-thief falls,
O'er hypocritic cheek and brow
The crimson flush of shame shall
glow :
And all who for their native land
Are pledging life and heart and
hand, —
Worn watchers o'er her changing
w^eal,
Who for her tarnished honor feel, —
Through cottage door and council-
hall
Shall thunder an awakening call.
The pen along its page shall burn
With all intolerable scorn, —
An eloquent rebuke shall go
On all the winds that Southward
blow, —
From priestly lips, now sealed and
dumb,
Warning and dread appeal shall come,
Like those which Israel heard from
him,
The Prophet of the Cherubim, —
Or those which sad Esaias hurled
Against a sin-accursed world !
Its wizard leaves the Press shall fling
Unceasing from its iron wing,
With characters inscribed thereon,
As fearful in the despot's hall
As to the pomp of Babylon
The fire-sign on the palace wall !
And, from her dark iniquities,
Methinks I see my country rise :
Not challenging the nations round
To note her tardy justice done, —
Her captives from their chains un-
bound.
Her prisons opening to the sun : —
But tearfully her arms extending
Over the poor and unoffending ;
Her regal emblem now no longer
A bird of prey, with talons reeking,
Above the dying captive shrieking,
But, spreading out her ample wing, —
A broad, impartial covering, —
The weaker sheltered by the strong-
er!—
O, then to Faith's anointed eyes
The promised token shall be given ;
And on a nation's sacrifice,
Atoning for the sin of years,
And wet with penitential tears, —
The fire shall fall from Heaven!
1839.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
1845.
God bless New Hampshire! — from
her granite peaks
Once more the voice of Stark and
Langdon speaks.
The long-bound vassal of the exulting
South
For very shame her self-forged chain
has broken, —
Torn the black seal of slavery from
her mouth.
And in the clear tones of her old
time ^Doken!
O, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for
changes! —
The tyrant's ally proves his stern-
est foe ;
To all his biddings, from her mountain
ranges,
New Hampshire thunders an indig-
nant No!
Who is it now despairs? O, faint of
heart,
Look upward to those Northern
mountains cold.
Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag
unrolled.
And gather strength to bear a manlier
part!
THE NEW YEAR.
77
All is not lost. The angel of God's
blessing
Encamps with Freedom on the field
of fight ;
Still to her banner, day by day, are
pressing,
Unlooked-for allies, striking for the
right!
Courage, then. Northern hearts ! — Be
firm, be true :
What one brave State hath done, can
ye not also do ?
THE NEW YEAR:
ADDRESSED TO THE PATRONS OF
THE PENNSYLVANIA FREEMAN.
The wave is breaking on the shore, —
The echo fading from the chime, —
Again the shadow moveth o'er
The dial-plate of time !
O, seer-seen Angel! waiting now
With weary feet on sea and shore.
Impatient for the last dread vow
That time shall be no more!
Once more across thy sleepless eye
The semblance of a smile has
passed :
The year departing leaves more nigh
Time's fearfullest and last.
O, in that dying year hath been
The sum of all since time began, —
The birth and death, the joy and pain.
Of Nature and of Man.
Spring, with her change of sun and
shower.
And streams released from winter's
chain,
And bursting bud, and opening flower,
And greenly growing grain ;
And Summer's shade, and sunshine
warm.
And rainbows o'er her hill-tops
bowed,
And voices in her rising storm, —
(lod speaking from his cloud! —
And Autumn's fruits and clustering
sheaves,
And soft, warm days of golden light.
The glory of her forest leaves,
And harvest-moon at night ;
And Winter with her leafless grove,
And prisoned stream, and drifting
snows
The brilliance of her heaven above
And of her earth below : —
And man, — in whom an angel's mind
With earth's low instincts finds
abode, —
The highest of the links which bind
Brute nature to her God ;
His infant eye hath seen the light.
His childhood's merriest laughter
rung,
And active sports to manlier might
The nerves of boyhood strung!
And quiet love, and passion's fires.
Have soothed or burned in man-
hood's breast.
And lofty aims and low desires
By turns disturbed his rest.
The wailing of the newly-born
Has mingled with the funeral knell ;
And o'er the dying's ear has gone
The merry marriage-bell.
And Wealth has filled his halls with *
mirth,
While Want, in many a humble
shed.
Toiled, shivering by her cheerless
hearth,
And worse than all, — the human
slave, —
78
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
The sport of lust^ and pride, and
scorn !
Plucked ofif the crown his Maker
gave,—
His regal manhood gone I
O, still, my country! o'er thy plains,
Blackened with slavery's blight and
ban,
That human chattel drags his chains, —
An uncreated man !
And still, where'er to sun and breeze,
My country, is thy flag unrolled.
With scorn, the gazing stranger sees
A stain on every fold.
O, tear the gorgeous emblem down !
It gathers scorn from every eye.
And despots smile and good men
frown
Whene'er it passes by.
Shame! shame! its starry splendors
glow
Above the slaver's loathsome jail, —
Its folds are ruffling even now
His crimson flag of sale.
Still round our country's proudest hall
The trade in human flesh is driven.
And at each careless hammer-fall
A human heart is riven.
And this, too, sanctioned by the men.
Vested with power to shield the
right.
And throw each vile and robber den
Wide open to the light.
Yet, shame upon them! — there they
sit,
Men of the North, subdued and
still ;
Meek, pliant poltroons, only fit
To work a master's will.
Sold, — bargained ofif for Southern
votes, —
A passive herd of Northern mules.
Just braying through their purchased
throats
Whate'er their owner rules.
And he, — the basest of the base,
The vilest of the vile, — whose
name,
Embalmed in infinite disgrace,
Is deathless in its shame! —
A tool, — to bolt the people's door
Against the people clamoring there,
An ass, — to trample on their floor
A people's right of prayer!
Nailed to his self-made gibbet fast.
Self-pilloried to the public view, —
A mark for every passing blast
Of scorn to whistle through ;
boast
Of Southrons o'er their pliant
tool, —
A St. Stylites on his post,
'' Sacred to ridicule ! "
Look we at home! — our noble hall.
To Freedom's holy purpose given,
Now rears its black and ruined wall,
Beneath the wintry heaven, —
Telling the story of its doom, — •
The fiendish mob, — the prostrate
law, —
The fiery jet through midnight's
gloom.
Our gazing thousands saw.
Look to our State, — the poor man's
right
Torn from him: — and the sons of
those
Whose blood in Freedom's sternest
fight
Sprinkled the Jersey snows,
Outlawed within the land of Penn,
That Slavery's guilty fears might
cease.
MASSACHUSEITS TO VIRGINIA.
79
And those whom God created men
Toil on as brutes in peace.
Yet o'er the blackness of the storm
A bow of promise bends on high,
And gleams of sunshine, soft and
warm,
Break through our clouded sky.
East, West, and North, the shout is
heard,
Of freemen rising for the right :
Each valley hath its rallying word, —
Each hill its signal light.
O'er Massachusetts' rocks of gray.
The strengthening light of freedom
shines,
Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, —
And Vermont's snow-hung pines!
From Hudson's frowning palisades
To Alleghany's laurelled crest,
O'er lakes and prairies, streams and
glades.
It shines upon the West.
Speed on the light to those who dwell
In Slavery's land of woe and sin.
And through the blackness of that
hell.
Let Heaven's own light break in.
So shall the Southern conscience
quake
Before that light poured full and
strong.
So sliall the Southern heart awake
To all the bondman's wrong.
And from that rich and sunny land
The song of grateful millions rise.
Like that of Israel's ransomed band
Beneath Arabia's skies :
And all who now are bound beneath
Our banner's shade, our eagle's
wing.
From Slavery's night of moral death
To light and life shall spring.
Broken the bondman's chain, and
gone
The master's guilt, and hate, and
fear,
And unto both alike shall dawn,
A New and Happy Year.
1839.
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.
[Written on reading an account of the proceedings of tlie citizens of Norfolk, Va., in
reference to Georcje Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Mas-
sachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro SOMERSET in England, in 1772.]
The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way.
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay : —
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel.
No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go, —
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow ;
And to the land-breeze of our ports, upon their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.
We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high.
Swell harshly on the Southern winds which melt along our sky ;
Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor here, —
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.
8o VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George^s bank, —
Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank ;
Through storm, and wave, and blinding mist, stout are the hearts which man
The iishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.
The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms,
Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the storms ;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,
They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.
What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day
When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array?
How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis, then?
Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call
Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil Hall?
When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each breath
Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of '' Liberty or Death ! "
What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their fathers' memory, — false to the faith they loved,
If she can scoff at Freedom, and its great charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from truth and duty turn ?
We hunt your bondmen, flying from Slavery's hateful hell, —
Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell, —
We gather, at your summons, above our fathers' graves.
From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves !
Thank God ! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow ;
The spirit of her early time is with her even now ;
Dream not because her Pilgrim blood moves slow and calm and cool,
She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!
All that a sister State should do, all that a. free State may,
Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day ;
But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with alone.
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown !
Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air
With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair;
Cling closer to the '^ cleaving curse " that writes upon your plains
The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains.
Still shame your gallant ancestry, the cavaliers of old,
By w^atching round the shambles where human flesh is sold, —
Gloat o'er the new-born child, and count his market value, when
The maddened mother's cry of woe shall pierce the slaver's den!
MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA. 8i
Lower than plummet soundeth, sink the Virginia name ;
Plant, if ye will, your fathers' graves with rankest weeds of shame ;
Be, if ye will, the scandal of God's fair universe, —
We wash our hands forever of your sin and shame and curse.
A voice from lips whereon the coal from Freedom's shrine hath been,
Thrilled, as but yesterday, the hearts of Berkshire's mountain men :
The echoes of that solemn voice are sadly lingering still
In all our sunny valleys, on every wind-swept hill.
And when the prowling man-thief came hunting for his prey
Beneath the very shadow of Bunker's shaft of gray,
How, through the free lips of the son, the father's warning spoke ;
How, from its bonds of trade and sect, the Pilgrim city broke!
A hundred thousand right arms were lifted up on high, —
A hundred thousand voices sent back their loud reply ;
Through the thronged towns of Essex the startling summons rang.
And up from bench and loom and wheel her young mechanics sprang!
The voice of free, broad Middlesex, — of thousands as of one, —
The shaft of Bunker calling to that of Lexington, —
From Norfolk's ancient villages, from Plymouth's rocky bound
To where Nantucket feels the arms of ocean close her round ; —
From rich and rural Worcester, where through the calm repose
Of cultured vales and fringing woods the gentle Nashua flows.
To where Wachuset's wintry blasts the mountain larches stir.
Swelled up to Heaven the thrilling cry of " God save Latimer!"
And sandy Barnstable rose up, wet with the salt sea spray, —
And Bristol sent her answering shout down Narragansett Bay!
Along the broad Connecticut old Hampden felt the thrill.
And the cheer of Hampshire's woodmen swept down from Holyoke Hill.
The voice of Massachusetts ! Of her free sons and daughters, —
Deep calling unto deep aloud, — the sound of many waters!
Against the burden of that voice what tyrant power shall stand .f*
No fetters m the Bay State I No slave upon her land!
Look to it well, Virginians! In calmness we have borne,
In answer to our faith and trust, your insult and your scorn ;
You 've spurned our kindest counsels, — you Ve hunted for our lives, —
And shaken round our hearths and homes your manacles and gyves !
We wage no war, — we lift no arm, — we fling no torch within
The fire-damps of the quaking mine beneath your soil of sin ;
We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can.
With the strong upward tendencies and godlike soul of man!
G
82
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
But for us and for our children, the vow which we have given
For freedom and humanity is registered in Heaven ;
No slavc-Jiimt in our bonie^'s^ — Jio pirate on our strand I
No fetters in the Bay State, — no slave upon onr land I
THE RELIC.
[Pennsylvania Hall, dedicated to Free
Discussion and the cause of human liberty,
was destroyed by a mob in 1838. The fol-
lowing was wriUen on receiving a cane
wrought from a fragment of the wood-work
which the fire had spared.]
Token of friendship true and tried,
From one whose fiery heart of youth
With mine has beaten, side by side,
For Liberty and Truth ;
With honest pride the gift I take,
And prize it for the giver's sake.
But not alone because it tells
Of generous hand and heart sin-
cere ;
Around that gift of friendship dwells
A memory doubly dear, —
Earth's noblest aim, — man's holiest
thought,
With that memorial frail inwrought!
Pure thoughts and sweet, like flowers
unfold.
And precious memories round it
cling,
Even as the Prophet's rod of old
In beauty blossoming :
And buds of feeling pure and good
Spring from its cold unconscious wood.
Relic of Freedom's shrine ! — a brand
Plucked from its burning ! — let it be
Dear as a jewel from the hand
Of a lost friend to me ! —
Flower of a perished garland left,
Of life and beauty unbereft !
O, if the young enthusiast bears.
O'er weary waste and sea, the stone
Which crumbled from the Forum's
stairs,
Or round the Parthenon ;
Or olive-bough from some wild tree
Hung over old Thermopylae :
If leaflets from some hero's tomb,
Or moss-wreath torn from ruins
hoary, —
Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom
On fields renowned in story, —
Or fragment from the Alhambra^s
crest,
Or the gray rock by Druids blessed ;
Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing
Where Freedom led her stalwart
kern.
Or Scotia's " rough bur thistle ^^ blow-
ing
On Bruce's Bannockburn, —
Or Runnymede's wild English rose,
Or lichen plucked from Sempach^s
snows! —
If it be true that things like these
To heart and eye bright visions
bring.
Shall not far holier memories
To this memorial cling?
Which needs no mellowing mist of
time
To hide the crimson stains of crime!
Wreck of a temple, unprofaned, —
Of courts where Peace with Free-
dom trod.
Lifting on high, with hands unstained.
Thanksgiving unto God :
Where Mercy's voice of love w^as
pleading
For human hearts in bondage bleed-
THE BRANDED HAND.
Where, midst the sound of rushing
feet
And curses on the night-air flung,
That pleading voice rose cahii and
sweet
From woman's earnest tongue ;
And Riot turned his scowling glance,
Awed, from her tranquil countenance!
That temple now in ruin lies ! —
The fire-stain on its shattered wall,
And open to the changing skies
Its black and roofless hall,
It stands before a nation's sight,
A gravestone over buried Right I
But from that ruin, as of old,
The fire-scorched stones themselves
are crying.
And from their ashes white and cold
Its timbers are replying!
A voice which slavery cannot kill
Speaks from the crumbling arches
still !
And even this relic from thy shrine, »
O holy Freedom! hath to me
A potent power, a voice and sign
To testify of thee ;
And, grasping it, methinks I feel
A deeper faith, a stronger zeal.
And not unlike that mystic rod,
Of old stretched o^er the Egyptian
wave.
Which opened, in the strength of God,
A pathway for the slave,
It yet may point the bondman\s Avay,
And turn the spoiler from his prey.
THE BRANDED HAND.
1846.
Welcome home again, brave seaman ! with thy thoughtful brow and gray,
And the old heroic spirit of our earlier, better day, —
With that front of calm endurance, on whose steady nerve in vain
Pressed the iron of the prison, smote the fiery shafts of pain!
Is the tyrant^s brand upon thee? Did the brutal cravens aim
To make God's truth thy falsehood, his holiest work thy shame?
When, all blood-quenched, from the torture the iron was withdrawn,
How laughed their evil angel the bafiled fools to scorn!
They change to wrong the duty which God hath written out
On the great heart of humanity, too legible for doubt!
They^ the loathsome moral lepers, blotched from footsole up to crown,
Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown!
Why, that brand is highest honor! — than its traces never yet
Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set ;
And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand,
Shall tell with pride the story of their father's branded hand!
As the Templar home w^as welcome, bearing back from Syrian wars
The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scymitars.
The pallor of the prison, and the shackle's crimson span,
So we meet thee, so we greet thee, truest friend of God and man!
84
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave.
Thou for his living presence in the bound and bleeding slave;
He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod.
Thou for the true Shechinah, the present home of God!
For, while the jurist, sitting with the slave-whip o'er him swung,
From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung.
And the solemn priest to Moloch, on each God-deserted shrine.
Broke the bondman's heart for bread, poured the bondman's blood for wine, -
While the multitude in blindness to a far-off Saviour knelt.
And spurned, the while, the temple where a present Saviour dwelt ;
Thou beheld'st him in the task-neld, in the prison shadows dim,
And thy mercy to the bondman, it was mercy unto him!
In thy lone and long night-watches, sky above and wave below.
Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know;
God's stars and silence taught thee, as his angels only can.
That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is Man!
That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed.
In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need ;
But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod.
And herds with lower natures the awful form of God!
Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the w^ave!
Its branded palm shall prophesy. -Salvation to the Sla\^! "
Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.
Hold it up before our sunshine, up against our Northern air. —
Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God, look there!
Take it henceforth for your standard, like the Bruce's heart of yore,
In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before!
And the tyrants of the slave-land shall tremble at that sign,
When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line :
Woe to the State-gorged leeches and the Church's locust band,
W^hen they look from slavery's ramparts on the coming of that hand!
TEXAS.
VOICE OF NEW ENGLAND.
Up the hillside, down the glen,
Rouse the sleeping citizen :
Summon out the miorht of men!
Like a lion growling low\ —
Like a night-storm rising slow, —
Like the tread of unseen foe, —
It is coming. — it is nigh !
Stand your homes and altars by;
On vour own free thresholds die.
TEXAS.
85
Clang the bells in all your spires ;
On the.gray hills of your sires
Pling to heaven your signal-fires.
From Wachuset, lone and bleak,
Unto Berkshire's tallest peak,
Let the flame-tongued heralds speak.
O, for God and duty stand,
Heart to heart and hand to hand.
Round the old graves of the land.
Whoso shrinks or falters now.
Whoso to the yoke would bow.
Brand the craven on his brow!
Freedom's soil hath only place
For a free and fearless race, —
None for traitors false and base.
Perish party, — perish clan ;
Strike together while ye can.
Like the arm of one strong man.
Like that angePs voice sublime.
Heard above a world of crime.
Crying of the end of time, —
With one heart and with one mouth.
Let the North unto the South
Speak the word befitting both :
*^ What though Lssachar be strohg!
Ye may load his back with wrong
Overmuch and over long :
'* Patience with her cup overrun.
With her weary thread outspun.
Murmurs that her work is done.
^' Make our Union-bond a chain,
Weak as tow in Freedom''s strain
Link by link shall snap in twain.
'^ Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope
Bind the starry cluster up,
Shattered over heaven's blue cope !
" Give us bright though broken rays,
Rather than eternal haze.
Clouding o'er the full-orbed blaze.
" Take your land of sun and bloom ;
Only leave to Freedom room
For her plough, and forge, and loom ;
" Take your slavery-blackened vales ;
Leave us but our own free gales.
Blowing on our thousand sails.
'' Boldly, or with treacherous art,
Strike the blood-wrought chain apart ;
Break the Union's mighty heart ;
" Work the ruin, if ye will ;
Pluck upon your heads an ill
Which shall grow and deepen still.
"With your bondman's right arm
bare.
With his heart of black despair.
Stand alone, if stand ye dare!
" Onward with your fell design ;
Dig the gulf and draw the line :
Fire beneath your feet the mine :
" Deeply, when the wide abyss
Yawns between your land and this,
Shall ye feel your helplessness.
" By the hearth, and in the bed, .
Shaken by a look or tread,
Ye shall own a guilty dread.
" And the curse of unpaid toil,
Downward through your generous soil
Like a fire shall burn and spoil.
" Our bleak hills shall bud and blow.
Vines our rocks shall overgrow.
Plenty in our valleys flow ; —
'' And when vengeance clouds your
skies.
Hither shall ye turn your eyes.
As the lost on Paradise!
86
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
^^ We but ask our rocky strand,
Freedom's true and brother band,
Freedom's strong and honest hand, -
*' Valleys by the slave untrod,
And the Pilgrim's mountain sod.
Blessed of our fathers^ God!."
TO FANEUIL HALL.
1844.
Men! — if manhood still ye claim,
If the Northern pulse can thrill,
Roused by wrong or stung by shame,
Freely, strongly still, —
Let the sounds of traffic die :
Shut the mill-gate, — leave the
stall, —
Fling the axe and hammer by, —
Throng to Faneuil Hall !
Wrongs which freemen never
brooked, —
Dangers grim and fierce as they.
Which, like couching lions, looked
On your fathers' way, —
These your instant zeal demand,
Shaking with their earthquake-call
Every rood of Pilgrim land.
Ho, to Faneuil Hall !
From your capes and sandy bars, —
From your mountain-ridges cold.
Through whose pines the westering
stars
Stoop their crowns of gold, —
Come, and with your footsteps wake
Echoes from that holy wall ;
Once again, for Freedom's sake.
Rock your fathers' hall !
Up, and tread beneath your feet
Every cord by party spun ;
Let your hearts together beat
As the heart of one.
Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade.
Let then) rise or let them fall :
Freedom asks your common aid, —
Up, to Faneuil Hall!
Up, and let each voice that speaks
Ring from thence to Southern
plains.
Sharply as the blow which breaks
Prison-bolts and chains !
Speak as well becomes the free :
Dreaded more than steel or ball.
Shall your calmest utterance be.
Heard from Faneuil Hall!
Have they wronged us? Let us then
Render back nor threats nor prayers ;
Have they chained our free-born men?
Let us unchain theirs!
Up, your banner leads the van.
Blazoned, " Liberty for all! "
Finish what your sires began!
Up, to Faneuil Hall !
TO MASSACHUSETTS.
1844.
What though around thee blazes
No fiery rallying sign ?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine!
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesman stands apart.
And comes no warm approving
From Mammon's crowded mart?
Still, let the land be shaken
By a summons of thine own!
By all save truth forsaken,
Why, stand with that alone!
Shrink not from strife unequal!
With the best is always hope ;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up !
But when, with thine uniting,
Come voices long and loud.
And far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-w^ords on the cloud ;
THE PINE-TREE.
87
When from Penobscot's fountains
A deep response is heard,
And across the Western mountains
Rolls back thy rallying word ;
Shall thy line of battle falter,
With its allies just in view?
O, by hearth and holy altar,
My fatherland, be true!
Fling abroad thy scrolls of Freedom !
Speed them onward far and fast !
Over hill and valley speed them.
Like the sibyl's on the blast !
Lo! the Empire State is shaking
The shackles from her hand ;
With the rugged North is waking
The level sunset land !
On they come, — the free battalions!
East and West and North they
come.
And the heart-beat of the millions
Is the beat of Freedom's drum.
" To the tyrant's plot no favor !
No heed to place-fed knaves !
Bar and bolt the door forever
Against the land of slaves ! "
Hear it, mother Earth, and hear it,
The Heavens above us spread !
The land is roused, — its spirit
Was sleeping, but not dead!
THE PINE-TREE.
1846.
Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield.
Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field.
Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board.
Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!"
Rise again for home and freedom! — set the battle in array! —
What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.
Tell us not of banks and tariffs, — cease your paltry pedler cries, —
Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise?
Would ye barter man for cotton? — Tliat your gains may sum up higher,
Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire?
Is the dollar only real? — God and truth and right a dream?
Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam ?
O my God! — for that free spirit, w^hich of old in Boston town
Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down! —
For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry,
" Up for God and Massachusetts! — Set 'your feet on Mammon's lie!
Perish banks and perish traffic, — spin your cotton's latest pound, —
But in Heaven's name keep your honor, — keep the heart o' the Bay State
sound ! "
Where 's the man for Massachusetts ? — Where 's the voice to speak her free ? —
Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea?
Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? — Sits she dumb in her despair? —
Has she none to break the silence? — Has she none to do and dare?
O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted shield.
And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field!
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
LINES,
SUGGESTED BY A VISIT TO THE CITY
OF WASHINGTON, IN THE I2TH
MONTH OF 1845.
With a cold and wintry noon-light,
On its roofs and steeples shed,
Shadows weaving with the sunlight
From the gray sky overhead.
Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies
the half-built tow^n outspread.
Through this broad street, restless
ever.
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river ;
Wealth and fashion side by side ;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the
same quick current glide.
Underneath yon dome, whose cop-
ing
Springs above them, vast and tall,
Grave men in the dust are groping
For the largess, base and small,
Which the hand of Power is scattering,
crumbs which from its table fall.
Base of heart ! They vilely barter
Honor's wealth for party's place:
Step by step on Freedom's charter
Leaving footprints of disgrace ;
For to-day's poor pittance turning
from the great hope of their
race.
Yet, where festal lamps are throwing
Glory round the dancer's hair, *
Gold-tressed, like an angel's, flowing
Backward on the sunset air ;
And the low quick pulse of music
beats its measures sweet and
rare:
There to-night shall woman's
glances.
Star-like, welcome give to them.
Fawning fools with shy advances
Seek to touch their garments'
hem.
With the tongue of flattery glozing
deeds which God and Truth
condemn.
From this glittering lie my vision
Takes a broader, sadder range.
Full before me have arisen
Other pictures dark and strange ;
From the parlor to the prison must
the scene and witness change.
Hark! the heavy gate is swinging
On its hinges, harsh and slow ;
One pale prison lamp is flinging
On a fearful group below
Such a light as leaves to terror what-
soe'er it does not show.
Pitying God ! — Is that a woman
On whose wrist the shackles
clash ?
Is that shriek she utters human,
Underneath the stinging lash?
Are they men whose eyes of madness
from that sad procession flash ?
Still the dance goes gayly onward!
What is it to Wealth and Pride
That without the stars are looking
On a scene which earth should
hide?
That the slave-ship lies in waiting,
rocking on Potomac's tide !
Vainly to that mean Ambition
Which, upon a rival's fall.
Winds above its old condition,
With a reptile's slimy crawl.
Shall the pleading voice of sorrow,
shall the slave in anguish call.
Vainly to the child of Fashion,
Giving to ideal woe
Graceful luxury of compassion,
Shall the stricken mourner go ;
Hateful seems the earnest sorrow,
beautiful the hollow show!
LINES.
89
Nay, my words are all too sweep-
ing:
In this crowded human mart,
Feeling is not dead, but sleeping ;
Man's strong will and woman's
heart.
In the coming strife for Freedom, yet
shall bear their generous part.
And from yonder sunny valleys.
Southward in the distance lost,
Freedom yet shall summon allies
Worthier than the North can
boast.
With the Evil by their hearth-stones
grappling at severer cost.
Now, the soul alone is willing :
Faint the heart and weak the
knee;
And as yet no lip is thrilling
With the mighty words, '' Be
Free! "
Tarrieth long the land's Good Angel,
but his advent is to be !
Meanwhile, turning from the revel
To the prison-cell my sight.
For intenser hate of evil.
For ajceener sense of right.
Shaking off thy dust, I thank thee,
City of the Slaves, to-night!
" To thy duty now and ever !
Dream no more of rest or stay ;
Give to Freedom's great endeavor
All thou art and hast to-day " :
Thus, above the city's murmur, saith
a Voice, or seems to say.
Ye with heart and vision gifted
To discern and love the right.
Whose worn faces have been lifted
To the slowly-growing light.
Where from Freedom's sunrise drifted
slowly back the murk of
night! —
Ye who through long years of trial
Still have held your purpose fast,
While a lengthening shade the dial
From the westering sunshine
cast.
And of hope each hour's denial seemed
an echo of the last! —
O my brothers! O my sisters!
Would to God that ye were near,
Gazing with me down the vistas
Of a sorrow strange and drear;
Would to God that ye were listeners
to the Voice I seem to hear!
With the storm above us driving.
With the false earth mined be-
low, —
Who shall marvel if thus striving
We have counted friend as foe ;
Unto one another giving in the dark-
ness blow for blow.
Well it may be that our natures
Have grown sterner and more
hard.
And the freshness of their features
Somewhat harsh and battle-
scarred.
And their harmonies of feeHng over-
tasked and rudely jarred.
Be it so. It should not swerve us
From a purpose true and brave ;
Dearer Freedom's rugged service
Than the pastime of the slave ;
Better is the storm above it than the
quiet of the grave.
Let us then, uniting, bury
All our idle feuds in dust.
And to future conflicts carry
Mutual faith and common trust ;
Always he who most forgiveth in his
brother is most just.
From the eternal shadow rounding
All our sun and starlight here.
Voices of our lost ones sounding
Bid us be of heart and cheer,
Through, the silence, down the spaces,
falling on the inward ear.
90
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Know we not our dead are looking
Downward with a sad surprise,
All our strife of words rebuking
With their mild and loving eyes?
Shall we grieve the holy angels?
Shall we cloud their blessed
skies ?
Let us draw their mantles o'er us
Which have fallen in our way ;
Let us do the work before us,
Cheerly, bravely, while we may,
Ere the long night-silence cometh,
and with us it is not day!
LINES,
FROM A LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERI-
CAL FRIEND.
A STRENGTH Thy service cannot
tire, —
A faith which doubt can never
dim, —
A heart of love, a lip of fire, —
O Freedom's God! be thou to
him!
Speak through him words of power
and fear,
As through thy prophet bards of
old.
And let a scornful people hear
Once more thy Sinai-thunders
rolled.
For lying lips thy blessing seek.
And hands of blood are raised to
Thee,
And on thy children, crushed and
weak,
The oppressor plants his kneeling
knee.
Let then, O God! thy servant dare
Thy truth in all its power to tell.
Unmask the priestly thieves, and
tear
The Bible from the grasp of hell!
From hollow rite and narrow span
Of law and sect by Thee released,
O, teach him that, the Christian man
Is hoHer than the Jewish priest.
Chase back the shadows, gray and
old.
Of the dead ages, from his way,
And let his hopeful eyes behold
The dawn of thy millennial
day; —
That day when fettered limb and
mind
Shall know the truth which maketh
free.
And he alone who loves his kind
Shall, childlike, claim the love of
Thee!
YORKTOWN.
From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and
still,
Two lines stretch far o''er vale and
hill :
Who curbs his steed at head of one?
Hark ! the low murmur : Washington !
Who bends his keen, approving
glance
Where down the gorgeous line of
France
Shine knightly star and plume of
snow ?
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau!
The earth which bears this calm
array
Shook with the war-charge yesterday.
Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof
and wheel.
Shot-sown and bladed thick with
steel ;
October's clear and noonday sun
Paled in the breath-smoke of the
gun.
And down nighf s double blackness
fell.
Like a dropped star, the blazing
shell,
YORKTOWN.
91
Now all is hushed : the gleaming
lines
Stand moveless as the neighboring
pines ;
While through them, sullen, grim,
and slow,
The conquered hosts of England
go:
O'Hara's brow belies his dress.
Gay Tarleton's troop rides banner-
less :
Shout, from thy fired and wasted
homes.
Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes !
Nor thou alone : with one glad voice
Let all thy sister States rejoice ;
Let Freedom, in whatever clime
She waits with sleepless eye her
time.
Shouting from cave and mountain
wood
Make glad her desert solitude.
While they who hunt her quail with
fear ;
The New World's chain lies broken
here I
But who are they, who, cowering,
wait
Within the shattered fortress gate?
Dark tillers of Virginia\s soil,
Classed with the battle's common
spoil,
With household stuffs, and fowl, and
swine.
With Indian weed and planters' wine,
With stolen beeves, and foraged
corn, —
Are they not men, Virginian born ?
O, veil your faces, young and brave !
Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave!
Sons of the Northland, ye who set
Stout hearts against the bayonet,
And pressed with steady footfall near
The moated battery's blazing tier.
Turn your scarred faces from the
sight,
Let shame do homage to the ri":ht!
Lo! threescore years have passed;
and where
The Gallic timbrel stirred the air,
With Northern drum-roll, and the
clear.
Wild horn-blow of the mountaineer.
While Britain grounded on that plain
The arms she miglit not lift again,
As abject as in that old day
The slave still toils his life away.
O, fields still green and fresh in story.
Old days of pride, old names of
glory.
Old marvels of the tongue and pen.
Old thoughts which stirred the hearts
of men,
Ye spared the wrong : and over all
Behold the avenging shadow fall !
Your world-wide honor stained with
shame, —
Your freedom's self a hollow name I
Where 's now the flag of that old
war?
Wliere flows its stripe? Where
burns its star?
Bear witness, Palo Alto's day.
Dark Vale of Palms, red Monterey,
Where Mexic Freedom, young and
weak.
Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak :
Symbol of terror and despair.
Of chains and slaves, go seek it
there !
Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks!
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's
banks!
Brave sport to see the fledgling born
Of Freedom by its parent torn!
Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon
cell.
Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell :
With Slavery's flag o'er both un-
rolled.
What of the New World fears the
Old?
92
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
LINES,
WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF A FRIEND.
On page of thine I cannot trace
The cold and heartless common-
place, —
A statue's fixed and marble grace.
For ever as these lines I penned,
Still with the thought of thee will
blend
That of some loved and common
friend, —
Who in Hfe\s desert track has made
His pilgrim tent with mine, or
strayed
Beneath the same remembered
shade.
And hence my pen unfettered moves
In freedom which the heart ap-
proves, —
The negligence which friendship
loves.
And wilt thou prize my poor gift less
For simple air and rustic dress,
And sign of haste and carelessness ? —
O, more than specious counterfeit
Of sentiment or studied wit,
A heart like thine should value it.
Yet half I fear my gift will be
Unto thy book, if not to thee.
Of more than doubtful courtesy.
A banished name from fashion's
sphere,
A lay unheard of Beauty's ear,
Forbid, disowned, — what do they
here? —
Upon my ear not all in vain
Came the sad captive's clanking
chain, —
The groaning from his bed of pain.
And sadder still, I saw the woe
Which only wounded spirits know
When Pride's strong footsteps o'er
them go.
Spurned not alone in walks abroad.
But from the " temples of the Lord "
Thrust out apart, like things abhorred.
Deep as I felt, and stern and strong,
In words which Prudence smothered
long.
My soul spoke out against the wrong ;
Not mine alone the task to speak
Of comfort to the poor and weak,
And dry the tear on Sorrow's cheek ;
But, mingled in the conflict warm,
To pour the fiery breath of storm
Through the harsh trumpet of Reform ;
To brave Opinion's settled frown,
From ermined robe and saintly gown,
While wrestling reverenced Error
down.
Founts gushed beside my pilgrim way,
Cool shadows on the greensward lay,
Flowers swung upon the bending
spray.
And, broad and bright, on either hand,
Stretched the green slopes of Fairy-
land,
With Hope's eternal sunbow spanned ;
Whence voices called me like the flow,
Which on the listener's ear will grow,
Of forest streamlets soft and low.
And gentle eyes, which still retain
Their picture on the heart and brain.
Smiled, beckoning from that path of
pain.
In vain! — nor dream, nor rest, nor
pause
Remain for him who round him draws
The battered mail of Freedom's cause.
LINES.
93
From youthful hopes, — from each
green spot
Of ybung Romance, and gentle
Thought,
Where storm and tumult enter not, —
From each fair altar, where belong
The offerings Love requires of Song
In homage to her bright-eyed throng, —
and hand,
I turned to Freedom's struggling
band, —
To the sad Helots of our land.
What marvel then that Fame should
turn
Her notes of praise to those of scorn, —
Her gifts reclaimed, — her smiles with-
drawn ?
What matters it ! — a few years more,
Life's surge so restless heretofore
Shall break upon the unknown shore !
In that far land shall disappear
The shadows which we follow here, —
The mist-wreaths of our atmosphere !
Before no work of mortal hand.
Of human will or strength expand
The pearl gates of the Better Land ;
Alone in that great love which gave
Life to the sleeper of the grave,
Resteth the power to" seek and save."
Yet, if the spirit gazing through
The vista of the past can view
One deed to Heaven and virtue true, —
If through the wreck of wasted powers.
Of garlands wreathed from Folly's
bowers.
Of idle aims and misspent hours, —
The eye can note one sacred spot
By Pride and Self profaned not, —
A green place in the waste of
thought, —
Where deed or word hatli rendered
less
" The sum of human wretchedness,"
And Gratitude looks forth to bless, —
The simple burst of tenderest feeling
From sad hearts worn by evil-dealing.
For blessing on the hand of healing, —
Better than Glory's pomp will be
That green and blessed spot to me, —
A palm-shade in Eternity! —
Something of Time which may invite
The iDurified and spiritual sight
To rest on with a calm delight.
And when the summer winds shall
sw^eep
With their light wings my place of
sleep.
And mosses round my headstone
creep, —
If still, as Freedom's rallying sign.
Upon the young heart's altars shine
The very fires they caught from
mine, —
If words my lips once uttered still.
In the calm faith and steadfast will
Of other hearts, their work fulfil, —
Perchance with joy the soul may learn
These tokens, and its eye discern
The fires which on those altars burn, —
A marvellous joy that even then,
The spirit hath its life again,
In the strong hearts of mortal men.
Take, lady, then, the gift I bring.
No gay and graceful offering, —
No flower-smile of the laughing spring.
Midst the green buds of Youth's fresh
May,
94
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
With Fancy's leaf-enwoven bay.
My sad and sombre gift I lay.
And if it deepens in thy mind
A sense of suffering human-kind, —
The outcast and the spirit-blind :
Oppressed and spoiled on every side,
By Prejudice, and Scorn, and Pride,
Life's common courtesies denied ;
Sad mothers mourning o'er their trust,
Children by want and misery nursed.
Tasting life's bitter cup at first ;
If to their strong appeals which come
From iireless hearth, and crowded
room,
And the close alley's noisome gloom, —
Though dark the hands upraised to
thee
In mute beseeching agony,
Thou lend'st thy woman's sympa-
thy,—
Not vainly on thy gentle shrine.
Where Love, and Mirth, and Friend-
ship twine
Their varied gifts, I offer mine.
P^AN.
1848.
Now, joy and thanks forevermore !
The dreary night has wellnigh
passed.
The slumbers of the North are o'er, —
The Giant stands erect at last!
More than we hoped in that dark time,
When, faint with watching, few and
worn.
We saw no welcome day-star climb
The cold gray pathway of the morn !
O weary hours ! O night of years !
What storms our darkling pathway
swept,
Where, beating back our thronging
fears,
By Faith alone our march we kept.
How jeered the scoffing crowd behind.
How mocked before the tyrant train,
As, one by one, the true and kind
Fell fainting in our path of pain !
They died, — their brave hearts break-
ing slow, —
But, self-forgetful to the last.
In words of cheer and bugle blow
Their breath upon the darkness
passed.
A mighty host, on either hand,
Stood waiting for the dawn of day
To crush like reeds our feeble band ;
The morn has come, — and where
are they?
Troop after troop their line forsakes ;
With peace-white banners waving
free.
And from our own the glad shout
breaks,
Of Freedom and Fraternity !
Like mist before the growing light,
The hostile cohorts melt away ;
Our frowning foemen of the night
Are brothers at the dawn of day !
As unto these repentant ones
We open wide our toil-worn ranks.
Along our line a murmur runs
Of song, and praise, and grateful
thanks.
Sound for the onset ! — Blast on blast !
Till Slavery's minions cower and
quail ;
One charge of fire shall drive them fast
Like chaff before our Northern gale !
O prisoners in your house of pain.
Dumb, toiling millions, bound and
sold,
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS SHIPLEY.
95
Look! stretched o'er Southern vale
afid phiin,
The Lord's delivering hand behold !
Above the tyrant's pride of power,
His iron gates and guarded wall,
The bolts which shattered Shinar's
tower
Hang, smoking, for a fiercer fall.
Awake! awake! my Fatherland!
It is thy Northern light that shines ;
This stirring march of Freedom's band
The storm-song of thy mountain
pines.
Wake, dwellers where the day expires !
And hear, in winds that sw eep your
lakes
And fan your prairies' roaring fires.
The signal-call that Freedom makes !
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS
SHIPLEY.
Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest!
The flowers of Eden round thee
blowing.
And on thine ear the murmurs blest
Of Siloa's waters softly flowing!
I]eneath that Tree of Life which gives
To all the earth its healing leaves
In the white robe of angels clad.
And wandering by that sacred river,
Whose streams of holiness make glad
The city of our God forever!
Gentlest of spirits ! — not for thee
Our tears are shed, our sighs are
given ;
Why mourn to know thou art a free
Partaker of the joys of Heaven?
Finished thy work, and kept thy faith
In Christian firmness unto death ;
And beautiful as sky and earth.
When autumn's sun is downward
going.
The blessed memory of thy worth
Around thy place of slumber glow-
ing!
But woe for us! who linger still
W^ith feebler strength and hearts less
lowly.
And minds less steadfast to the will
Of Him whose every work is holy.
For not like thine, is crucified
The spirit of our human pride :
And at the bondman's tale of woe.
And for the outcast and forsaken,
Not warm like thine, but cold and slow,
Our weaker sympathies awaken.
Darkly upon our struggling way
The storm of human hate is sweep-
ing;
Hunted and branded, and a prey.
Our watch amidst the darkness
keeping,
O for that hidden strength which can
Nerve unto death the inner man!
O for thy spirit, tried and true.
And constant in the hour of trial,
Prepare to suffer, or to do,
In meekness and in self-denial.
O for that spirit, meek and mild.
Derided, spurned, yet uncomplain-
ing?—
By man deserted and reviled.
Yet faithful to its trust remaining.
Still prompt and resolute to save
From scourge and chain the hunted
slave ;
Un\vavering in the Truth's defence,
Even where the fires of Hate were
burning.
The unquailing eye of innocence
Alone upon the oppressor turning!
O loved of thousands ! to thy grave,
Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore
thee.
The poor man and the rescued slave
W^ept as the broken earth closed
o'er thee ;
And grateful tears, like summer rain,
Quickened its dying grass again !
96
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine,
Shall come the outcast and the lowly,
Of gentle deeds and words of thine
Recalling memories sweet and holy !
O for the death the righteous die !
An end, like autumn's day declining,
On human hearts, as on the sky.
With holier, tenderer beauty shin-
ing;
As to the parting soul were given
The radiance of an opening Heaven!
As if that pure and blessed light,
From off the Eternal altar flowing,
Were bathing, in its upward flight.
The spirit to its worship going!
TO A SOUTHERN STATESMAN.
1846.
Is this thy voice, whose treble notes
of fear
Wail in the wind? And dost thou
shake to hear,
Actaeon-like, the bay of thine own
hounds,
Spurning the leash, and leaping o'er
their bounds?
Sore-baffled statesman! when thy
eager hand.
With game afoot, unslipped the hun-
gry pack,
To hunt down Freedom in her chosen
land,
Hadst thou no fear, that, erelong,
doubling back.
These dogs of thine might snuff on
Slavery's track ?
Where 's now the boast, which even
thy guarded tongue,
Cold, calm, and proud, in the teeth o^
the Senate flung,
O'er the fulfilment of thy baleful plan,
Like Satan's triumph at the fall of
man ?
How stood'st thou then, thy feet on
Freedom planting,
And pointing to the lurid heaven afar,
Whence all could see, through the
south windows slanting,
Crimson as blood, the beams of that
Lone Star!
The Fates are just ; they give us but
our own ;
Nemesis ripens what our hands have
sown.
There is an Eastern story, not un-
known.
Doubtless, to thee, of one whose
magic skill
Called demons up his water-jars to fill ;
Deftly and silently, they did his will,
But, w^hen the task was done, kept
pouring still,
In vain with spell and charm the wiz-
ard wrought,
Faster and faster were the buckets
brought.
Higher and higher rose the flood
around.
Till the fiends clapped their hands
above their master drowned!
So, Carolinian, it may prove with
thee,
For God still overrules man's schemes,
and takes
Craftiness in its self-set snare, and
makes
The wrath of man to praise Him. It
may be.
That the roused spirits of Democracy
May leave to freer States the same
wide door
Through which thy slave-cursed Texas
entered in.
From out the blood and fire, the
wrong and sin.
Of the stormed city and the ghastly
plain.
Beat by hot hail, and wet with bloody
rain,
A myriad-handed Aztec host may
• pour.
And swarthy South with pallid North
combine
Back on thyself to turn thy dark
LINES.
97
LINES,
written on the adoption of
pinckney's resolutions, in the
house of representatives, and
the passage of calhoun' s ^' bill
for excluding papers written
or printed, touching the sub-
ject of slavery from the u.s.
i'ost-office," in the senate of
the united states.
Men of the North-land ! where 's the
manly spirit
Of the true-hearted and the un-
shackled gone?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit
Their names alone?
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched
within us,
Stoops the strong manhood of our
souls so low.
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile
can win us
To silence now?
Now, when our land to ruin's brink is
verging,
In God's name, let us speak while
there is time!
Now, when the padlocks for our lips
are forging.
Silence is crime !
What! shall we henceforth humbly
ask as favors
Rights all our own? In madness
shall we barter.
For treacherous peace, the freedom
Nature gave us,
God and our charter?
Here shall the statesman forge his
human fetters.
Here the false jurist human rights
deny,
And, in the church, their proud and
skilled abettors
Make truth a lie?
Torture the pages of the hallowed
Bible,
To sanction crime, and robbery,
and blood?
And, in Oppression's hateful service,
libel
Both man and God?
Shall our New England stand erect
no longer,
But stoop in chains upon her down-
ward way.
Thicker to gather on her limbs and
stronger
Day after day?
O no ; methinks from all her wild,
green mountains, —
From valleys where her slumbering
fathers lie, —
From her blue rivers and her welling
fountains.
And clear, cold sky, —
From her rough coast, and isles, which
hungry Ocean
Gnaws with his surges, — from the
fisher's skifif.
With white sail swaying to the bil-
lows' motion
Round rock and cliff, —
From the free fireside of her unbought
farmer, —
From her free laborer at his loom
and wheel, —
From the brown smith-shop, where,
beneath the hammer,
Rings the red steel, —
From each and all, if God hath not
forsaken
Our land, and left us to an evil
choice.
Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall
waken
A People's voice.
Startling and stern! the Northern
winds shall bear it
Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave ;
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
And buried Freedom shall awake to
hear it
Within her grave.
O, let that voice go forth ! The bond-
man sighing
By Santee^s wave, in Mississippi's
cane,
Shall feel the hope, within his bosom
dying,
Revive again.
Let it go forth ! The millions who
are gazing
Sadly upon us from afar, shall smile,
raismg,
Bless us the while.
O for your ancient freedom, pure and
holy,
For the deliverance of a groaning
earth.
For the wronged captive, bleeding,
crushed, and lowly,
Let it go forth !
Sons of the best of fathers! will ye
folter
With all they left ye perilled and
at stake?
Ho! once again on Freedom's holy
altar
The fire awake !
Prayer-strengthened for the trial, come
together,
Put on the harness for the moral
fight,
And, with the blessing of your Heav-
enly Father,
Maintain the right!
THE CURSE OF THE CHAR-
TER-BREAKERS.
In Westminster's royal halls.
Robed in their pontificals,
England's ancient prelates stood
For the people's right and good.
Closed around the w^iiting crowd,
Dark and still, like winter's cloud ;
King and council, lord and knight,
Squire and yeoman, stood in sight, —
Stood to hear the priest rehearse.
In God's name, the Church's curse,
By the tapers round them lit,
Slowly, sternly uttering it.
" Right of voice in framing laws,
Right of peers to try each cause ;
Peasant homestead, mean and small,
Sacred as the monarch's hall, —
^' Whoso lays his hand on these,
England's ancient liberties, —
Whoso breaks, by word or deed,
England's vow at Runnymede, —
" Be he Prince or belted knight,
Whatsoe'er his rank or might,
If the highest, then the worst.
Let him live and die accursed.
" Thou, who to thy Church hast given
Keys alike, of hell and heaven.
Make our word and witness sure,
Let the curse we speak endure!"
Silent, while that curse was said,
Every bare and listening head
Bowed in reverent awe, and then
All the people said. Amen !
Seven times the bells have tolled,
For the centuries gray and old.
Since that stoled and mitred band
Cursed the tyrants of their land.
Since the priesthood, like a tower.
Stood between the poor and power ;
And the wronged and trodden down
Blessed the abbot's shaven crown.
Gone, thank God, their wizard spell.
Lost, their keys of heaven and hell ;
Yet I sigh for men as bold
As those bearded priests of old.
THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.
99
Now, too oft the priesthood wait
At the threshold of the state, —
Waiting for the beck and nod
Of its power as law and God.
Fraud exults, while solemn words
Sanctify his stolen hoards ;
Slavery laughs, while ghostly lips
Bless his manacles and whips.
Not on them the poor rely,
Not to them looks liberty,
Who with fawning falsehood cower
To the wrong, when clothed with
power.
O, to see them meanly cling.
Round the master, round the king.
Sported with, and sold and bought, —
Pitifuller sight is not !
Tell me not that this must be :
God's true priest is always free ;
Free, the needed truth to speak.
Right the wronged, and raise the weak.
Not to fawn on wealth and state,
Leaving Lazarus at the gate, —
Not to peddle creeds like wares, —
Not to mutter hireling prayers, —
Nor to paint the new life's bliss
On the sable ground of this, —
Golden streets for idle knave,
Sabbath rest for weary slave !
Not for words and works like these,
Priest of God, thy mission is ;
But to make earth's desert glad,
In its Eden greenness clad ;
And to level manhood bring
Lord and peasant, serf and king ;
And the Christ of God to find
In the humblest of thy kind!
Thine to work as well as pray,
Clearing thorny wrongs away ;
Plucking up the weeds of sin,
Letting Heaven's warm sunshine in,—
Watching on the hills of Faith ;
Listening what the spirit saith,
Of the dim-seen light afar.
Growing like a nearing star.
God's interpreter art thou.
To the waiting ones below ;
'Twixt them and its light midway
Heralding the better day, —
Catching gleams of temple spires,
Hearing notes of angel choirs.
Where, as yet unseen of them.
Comes the New Jerusalem!
Like the seer of Patmos gazing,
On the glory downward blazing ;
Till upon Earth's grateful sod
Rests the City of our God !
THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.
SUGGESTED BY A DAGUERREOTYPE FROM A FRENCH ENGRAVING.
Beams of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten,
As she stands before her lover, with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song:
Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful beauty wrong.
He, the strong one and the manly, with the vassal's garb and hue,
Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher nature true ;
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman in his heart,
As the greegree holds his Fetich from the white man's gaze apart.
Ever foremost of his comrades, when the driver's morning horn
Calls away to stifling mill-house, to the fields of cane and corn :
Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back or limb ;
Scarce with look or word of censure, turns the driver unto him.
Yet, his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye is hard and stern ;
Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never deigned to learn.
And, at evening, when his comrades dance before their master's door,
Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands he silent evermore.
God be praised for every instinct which rebels against a lot
Where the brute survives the human, and man's upright form is not!
As the serpent-like bejuco winds his spiral fold on fold
Round the tall and stately ceiba, till it withers in his hold; —
Slow decays the forest monarch, closer girds the fell embrace,
Till the tree is seen no longer, and the vine is in its place, —
So a base and bestial nature round the vassal's manhood twines,
And the spirit wastes beneath it, like the ceiba choked with vines.
God is Love, saith the Evangel ; and our world of woe and sin
Is made light and happy only when a Love is shining in.
Ye whose lives are free as sunshine, finding, wheresoe'er ve roam.
Smiles of welcome, looks of kindness, making all the world like home;
In the veins of whose affections kindred blood is but a part.
Of one kindly current throbbing from the universal heart ;
Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in Slavery nursed,
Last flower of a lost Eden, blooming in that Soil accursed?
Love of Home, and Love of Woman! — dear to all, but doubly dear
To the heart whose pulses elsewhere measure only hate and fear.
All around the desert circles, underneath a brazen sky.
Only one green spot remaining where the dew is never dry!
From the horror of that desert, from its atmosphere of hell,
Turns the fainting spirit thither, as the diver seeks his bell.
THE SLAVES OF MARTINIQUE.
*Tis the fervid tropic noontime ; faint and low the sea-waves beat ;
Hazy rise the inland mountains through the glimmer of the heat, —
Where, through mingled leaves and blossoms, arrowy sunbeams flash and
glisten,
Speaks her lover to the slave girl, and she lifts her head to listen : —
^'We shall live as slaves no longer! Freedom's hour is close at hand!
Rocks her bark upon the waters, rests the boat upon the strand !
^' I have seen the Haytien Captain : I have seen his swarthy crew,
Haters of the pallid faces, to their race and color true.
'* They have sworn to wait our coming till the night has passed its noon.
And the gray and darkening waters roll above the sunken moon! ^'
0 the blessed hope of freedom! how with jo}' and glad surprise,
For an instant throbs her bosom, for an instant beam her eyes !
But she looks across the valley, where her mother's hut is seen.
Through the snowy bloom of coffee, and the lemon-leaves so green.
And she answers, sad and earnest : ^* It were wrong for thee to stay ;
God hath heard thy prayer for freedom, and his finger points the way.
'' Well I know with what endurance, for the sake of me and mine,
Thou hast borne too long a burden never meant for souls like thine.
'* Go ; and at the hour of midnight, when our last farewell is o'er.
Kneeling on our place of parting, I will bless thee from the shore.
" But for me, my mother, lying on her sick-bed all the day.
Lifts her weary head to watch me, coming through the twilight gray.
'* Should I leave her sick and helpless, even freedom, shared with thee,
Would be sadder far than bondage, lonely toil, and stripes to me.
'' For my heart would die within me. and my brain would soon be wild ;
1 should hear my mother calling through the twilight for her child! "
Blazing upward from the ocean, shines the sun of morning-time.
Through the coffee-trees in blossom, and green hedges of the lime.
Side by side, amidst the slave-gang, toil the lover and the maid ;
Wherefore looks he o'er the waters, leaning forward on his spade ?
Sadly looks he, deeply sighs he : 't is the Hayticn's sail he sees.
Like a white cloud of the mountains, driven seaward by the breeze!
VOICES OF FREEDOM.
But his arm a light hand presses, and he hears a low voice call :
Hate of Slavery, hope of Freedom, Love is mightier than all.
THE CRISIS.
WRITTEN ON LEARNING THE TERMS OF THE TREATY WITH MEXICO.
Across the Stony Mountains, o^er the desert's drouth and sand,
The circles of our empire touch the Western Ocean's strand ;
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free.
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to Cahfornia's sea ;
And from the mountains of the East, to Santa Rosa's shore.
The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more.
O Vale of Rio Bravo ! Let thy simple children weep ;
Close watch about their holy fire let maids of Pecos keep ;
Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines,
And Algodones toll her bells amidst her corn and vines ;
For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes of gain.
Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad Salada's plain.
Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the wings bring down
Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from cold Nevada's crown!
Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein of travel slack,
And, bending o'er his saddle, leaves the sunrise at his back;
By many a lonely river, and gorge of fir and pine.
On many a wintry hill-top, his nightly camp-fires shine.
O countrymen and brothers! that land of lake and plain,
Of salt wastes alternating with valleys fat with grain ;
Of mountains white with winter, looking downward, cold, serene.
On their feet with spring-vines tangled and lapped in softest green ;
Swift through whose black volcanic gates, o'er many a sunny vale.
Wind-like the Arapahoe sweeps the bison's dusty trail!
Great spaces yet untravelled, great lakes whose mystic shores
The Saxon rifle never heard, nor dip of Saxon oars ;
Great herds that wander all unwatched, wild steeds that none have tamed,
Strange fish in unknown streams, and birds the Saxon never named ;
Deep.mines, dark mountain crucibles, where Nature's chemic powers
Work out the Great Designer's will ; — all these ye say are ours!
Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burden lies ; j
God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across the skies. 1
Shall Justice, Truth, and Freedom turn the poised and trembling scale? ^
Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail?
Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry splendor waves,
Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread of slaves?
THE CRISIS. 103
The day is breaking in the East of which the prophets told,
And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian Age of Gold ;
Old Might to Right is yielding, battle blade to clerkly pen,
Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs stand up as men ;
The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations born,
And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by StambouPs Golden Horn!
Is this, O countrymen of mine! a day for us to sow
The soil of new-gained empire with slavery's seeds of woe?
To feed with our fresh life-blood the Old World's cast-off crime,
Dropped, like some monstrous early birth, from the tired lap of Time?
To run anew the evil race the old lost nations ran.
And die like them of unbelief of God, and wrong of man?
Great Heaven! Is this our mission? End in this the prayers and tears,
The toil, the strife, the watchings of our younger, better years?
Still as the Old World rolls in light, shall ours in shadow turn,
A beamless Chaos, cursed of God, through outer darkness borne?
Wliere the far nations looked for Hght, a blackness in the air?
Where for words of hope they listened, the long wail of despair?
The Crisis presses on us ; face to face with us it stands,
With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egypt's sands!
This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin ;
This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin ;
Even now from starry Gerizim, or EbaPs cloudy crown.
We call the dews of blessinor or the bolts of cursing down !
By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame ;
By all the w^arning words of truth with which the prophets came
By the Future which awaits us ; by all the hopes which cast
Their fliint and trembling beams across the blackness of the Past ;
And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth's freedom died,
O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous side.
So shall the Northern pioneer go joyful on his way ;
To wed Penobscot's w^aters to San Francisco's bay ;
To make the rugged places smooth, and sow the vales with grain ;
And bear, wdth Liberty and Law, the Bible in his train :
The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea shall answer sea.
And mountain unto mountain call. Praise God, for we are free!
I04
MISCELLANEOUS.
MISCELLANEOUS.
THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN.
Ere down yon blue Carpathian hills
The sun shall sink again.
Farewell to life and all its ills,
Farewell to cell and chain.
These prison shades are dark and
cold, —
But, darker far than they,
The shadow of a sorrow old
Is on my heart alway.
For since the day when Warkworth-
wood
Closed o^er my steed and I,
An alien from my name and blood,
A weed cast out to die, —
When, looking back in sunset light,
I saw her turret gleam,
And from its casement, far and white.
Her sign of farewell stream.
Like one who, from some desert
shore,
Doth home's green isles descry.
And, vainly longing, gazes o'er
The waste of wave and sky ;
So from the desert of my fate
I gaze across the past ;
Forever on life's dial-plate
The shade is backward cast!
I 've wandered wide from shore to
shore,
I 've knelt at many a shrine ;
And bowed me to the rocky floor
Where Bethlehem's tapers shine ;
And by the Holy Sepulchre
I 've pledged my knightly sword
To Christ, his blessed Church, and
her.
The Mother of our Lord.
O, vain the vow, and vain the strife!
How vain do all things seem!
My soul is in the past, and life
To-day is but a dream !
In vain the penance strange and
long,
And hard for flesh to bear ;
The prayer, the fasting, and the
thong
And sackcloth shirt of hair.
The eyes of memory will not sleep, —
Its ears are open still ;
And vigils with the past they keep
Against my feeble will.
And still the loves and joys of old
Do evermore uprise ;
I see the flow of locks of gold.
The shine of loving eyes!
Ah me! upon another's breast
Those golden locks recline ;
I see ujDon another rest
The glance that once was mine.
" O faithless priest ! — O perjured
knight!"
I hear the Master cry ;
" Shut out the vision from thy sight,
Let Earth and Nature die.
^•The Church of God is now thy
spouse,
And thou the bridegroom art ;
Then let the burden of thy vows
Crush down thy human heart! "
In vain! This heart its grief must
know.
Till life itself hath ceased.
And falls beneath the selfsame blow
The lover and the priest !
PALESTINE.
105
O pitying Mother! souls of light,
And saints, and martyrs old!
Pray for a weak and sinful knight,
A suifering man uphold.
Then let the Paynim work his will,
And death unbind my chain.
Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill
The sun shall fall again.
THE HOLY LAND.
FROM LAMARTINE.
I HAVE not felt, o'er seas of sand.
The rocking of the desert bark ;
Nor laved at Hebron's fount my
hand.
By Hebron's palm-trees cool and
dark;
Nor pitched my tent at even-fall.
On dust where Job of old has lain.
Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall.
The dream of Jacob o'er again.
One vast world-page remains unread ;
Hovv^ shine the stars in Chaldea's
sky.
How sounds the reverent pilgrim's
tread.
How beats the heart with God so
nigh ! —
How round gray arch and column
lone
The spirit of the old time broods,
And sighs in all the winds that moan
Along the sandy solitudes !
In thy tall cedars, Lebanon,
I have not heard the nations' cries,
Nor seen thy eagles stooping down
Where buried Tyre in ruin lies.
The Christian's prayer I have not
said
In Tadmor's temples of decay.
Nor startled, with my dreary tread,
The waste where Memnon's empire
lay.
Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide,
O Jordan! heard the low lament.
Like that sad wail along thy side
Which Israel's mournful prophet
sent!
Nor thrilled within that grotto lone
Where, deep in night, the Bard of
Kings
Felt hands of fire direct his own.
And sweep for God the conscious
strings.
I have not climbed to Olivet,
Nor laid me where my Saviour lay.
And left his trace of tears as yet
By angel eyes unwept away ;
Nor watched, at midnight's solemn
time,
The garden where his prayer and
groan,
Wrung by his sorrow and our crime.
Rose to One listening ear alone.
I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot
Where in his Mother's arms he lay
Nor knelt upon the sacred spot
Where last his footsteps pressed
the clay ;
Nor looked on that sad mountain
head,
Nor smote my sinful breast, where
wide
His arms to fold the world he spread,
And bowed his head to bless — and
died!
PALESTINE.
Blest land of Judaea ! thrice hallowed
of song,
Where the holiest of memories pil-
grim-like throng ;
In the shade of thy palms, by the
shores of thy sea.
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart
is with thee.
With the eye of a spirit I look on
that shore.
io6
MISCELLANEOUS.
Where pilgrim and prophet have lin-
gered before ;
With the glide of a spirit I traverse
the sod
Made bright by the steps of the
angels of God.
Blue sea of the hills ! — in my spirit I
hear
Thy waters, Genesaret, chime on my
ear;
W^here the Lowly and Just with the
people sat down,
And thy spray on the dust of his
sandals was thrown.
Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of
green,
And the desolate hills of the wild Gad-
arene ;
And I pause on the goat-crags of
Tabor to see
The gleam of thy waters, O dark Gal-
ilee!
Hark, a sound in the valley! where,
swollen and strong.
Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping
along ;
Where the Canaanite strove with Je-
hovah in vain.
And thy torrent grew dark with the
blood of the slain.
There down from his mountains stern
Zebulon came.
And Naphtali's stag, with his eyeballs
of flame,
And the chariots of Jabin rolled
harmlessly on.
For the arm of the Lord was Abino-
am's son !
There sleep the still rocks and the
caverns which rang
To the song wliich the beautiful
prophetess sang.
When the princes of Issachar stood
bv her side.
And the shout of a host in its triumph
replied.
Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is
seen,
With the mountains around, and the
valleys between ;
There rested the shepherds of Judah,
and there
The song of the angels rose sweet on
the air.
And Bethany\s palm-trees in beauty
still throw
Their shadows at noon on the ruins
below ;
But where are the sisters who has-
tened to greet
The lowly Redeemer, and sit at his
feet?
I tread where the twelve in their
wayfaring trod ;
I stand where they stood with the
CHOSEN OF God, —
Where his blessing was heard and his
lessons were taught,
Where the blind were restored and
the healing was wrought.
O, here with his flock the sad Wan-
derer came, —
These hills he toiled over in grief are
the same, —
The founts where he drank by the
w^ayside still flow,
And the same airs are blowing which
breathed on his brow!
And throned on her hills sits Jerusa-
lem yet.
But with dust on her forehead, and
chains on her feet ;
For the crown of her pride to the
mocker hath gone.
And the holy Shechinah is dark where
it shone.
But wherefore this dream of the
earthlv abode
EZEKIEL.
107
Of Humanity clothed in the brightness
of God?
Were my spirit but turned from the
outward and dim,
It could gaze, even now, on the pres-
ence of Him I
Not in clouds and in terrors, but
gentle as when.
In love and in meekness, He moved
among men ;
And the voice which breathed peace
to the waves of the sea
In the hash of my spirit would whis-
per to me !
And what if my feet may not tread
where He stood,
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Gal-
ilee's flood,
Nor my eyes see the cross which He
bowed him to bear,
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's
garden of prayer.
Yet, Loved of the Father, thy Spirit
is near
To the meek, and the lowly, and pen-
itent here ;
And the voice of thy love is the same
even now
As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's
brow.
O, the outward hath gone! — but in
glory and power,
The SPIRIT surviveth the things of an
hour;
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pente-
cost flame
On the heart's secret altar is burning
the same!
EZEKIEL.
CHAPTER XXXIII. 30-33.
They hear thee not, O God! nor see ;
Beneath thy rod they mock at thee ;
The princes of our ancient line
Lie drunken with Assyrian wine ;
The priests around thy altar speak
The false words which their hearers
seek ;
And hymns which Chaldea s wanton
maids
Have sung in Dura's idol-shades
Are with the Levites' chant ascending.
With Zion^s holiest anthems blending!
On Israel's bleeding bosom set.
The heathen heel is crushing yet ;
The towers upon our holy hill
Echo Chaldean footsteps still.
Our wasted shrines, — who weeps for
them ?
Who mourneth for Jerusalem?
W^ho turneth from his gains away?
Whose knee with mine is bowed to
pray ?
WHio, leaving feast and purpling cup,
Takes Zion's lamentation up?
A sad and thoughtful youth, I went
With Israel's early banishment ;
And where the sullen Chebar crept,
The ritual of my fathers kept.
The water for the trench I drew,
The firstling of the flock I slew,
And, standing at the altar's side,
I shared the Levites' lingering pride,
That still, amidst her mocking foes.
The smoke of Zion's offering rose.
In sudden whirlwind, cloud and flame.
The Spirit of the Highest came!
Before mine eyes a vision passed,
A glory terrible and vast ;
With dreadful eyes of living things,
And sounding sweep of angel wings,
W^ith circling light and sapphire
throne,
And flame-likfe form of One thereon,
And voice of that dread Likeness sent
Down from the crystal firmament!
The burden of a prophet's power
Fell on me in that fearful hour ;
From off" unutterable woes
The curtain of the future rose ;
ijS
MISCELLANEOUS.
I saw far down the coming time
The fiery chastisement of crime ;
With noise of minghng hosts, and jar
Of falHng towers and shouts of war,
I saw the nations rise and fall.
Like fire-gleams on my tent's white
wall.
In dream and trance, I saw the slain
Of Egypt heaped like harvest grain ;
I saw the waHs of sea-born Tyre
Swept over by the spoiler's fire ;
And heard the low, expiring moan
Of Edom on his rocky throne ;
And, woe is me ! the wild lament
From Zion's desolation sent ;
And felt within my heart each blow
Which laid her holy places low.
In bonds and sorrow, day by day,
Before the pictured tile I lay ;
And there, as in a mirror, saw
The coming of Assyria's war, —
Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass
Like locusts through Bethhoron's
grass ;
I saw them draw their stormy hem
Of battle round Jerusalem ;
And, listening, heard the Hebrew
wail
Blend with the victor-trump of Baal!
Who trembled at my warning word?
Who owned the prophet of the Lord?
How mocked the rude, — how scoffed
the vile, —
How stung the Levites' scornful smile.
As o'er my spirit, dark and slow.
The shadow crept of Israel's woe,
As if the angel's mournful roll
Had left its record on my soul.
And traced in fines of darkness there
The picture of its great despair!
Yet ever at the hour I feel
My lips in prophecy unseal.
Prince, priest, and Levite gather near.
And Salem's daughters haste to hear,
On Chebar's waste and alien shore.
The harp of Judah swept once more.
They listen, as in Babel's throng
The Chaldeans to the dancer's song,
Or wild sabbeka's nightly play,
As careless and as vain as they.
And thus, O Prophet-bard of old.
Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told !
The same which earth's unwelcome
seers
Have felt in all succeeding years.
Sport of the changeful multitude,
Nor calmly heard nor understood.
Their song has seemed a trick of art,
Their warnings but the actor's part.
With bonds, and scorn, and evil will,
The world requites its prophets still.
So was it when the Holy One
The garments of the fiesh put on !
Men followed where the Highest led
For common gifts of daily bread,
And gross of ear, of vision dim,
Owned not the godlike power of him.
Vain as a dreamer's words to them
His wail above Jerusalem,
And meaningless the watch he kept
Through which his weak disciples
slept.
Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art,
For God's great purpose set apart.
Before whose far-discerning eyes, '
The Future as the Present Hes!
Beyond a narrow-bounded age
Stretches thy prophet-heritage.
Through Heaven's dim spaces angel-
trod,
Through arches round the throne of
God!
Thy audience, worlds! — all Time to
be
The witness of the Truth in thee !
THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO
HER HUSBAND.
Against the sunset's glowing wall
The city towers rise black and tall.
Where Zorah on- its rocky height,
THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND.
109
Stands like an armed man in the
light.
Down EshtaoPs vales of ripened grain
Falls like a cloud the night amain,
And up the hillsides climbing slow
The barley reapers homeward go.
Look, dearest! how our fair child's
head
The sunset light hath hallowed.
Where at this olive's foot he lies,
Uplooking to the tranquil skies.
O, while beneath the fervent heat
Thy sickle swept the bearded wheat,
I Ve watched, with mingled joy and
dread.
Our child upon his grassy bed.
Joy, which the mother feels alone
Whose morning hope like mine had
flown.
When to her bosom, over blessed,
A dearer life' than hers is pressed.
Dread, for the future dark and still.
Which shapes our dear one to its
will ;
Forever in his large calm eyes,
I read a tale of sacrifice. —
The same foreboding awe I felt
When at the altar's side we knelt,
And he, who as a pilgrim came,
Rose, winged and glorious, through
the flame.
I slept not, though the wild bees
made
A dreamlike murmuring in the shade,
And on me the warm-fingered hours
Pressed with the drowsy smell of
flowers.
Before me, in a vision, rose
The hosts of Israel's scornful foes, —
Rank over rank, helm, shield, and
spear.
Glittered in noon's hot atmosphere.
I heard their boast, and bitter word.
Their mockery of the Hebrew's Lord,
I saw their hands his ark assail.
Their feet profane his holy veil.
No angel down the blue space spoke,
No thunder from the still sky broke ;
But in their midst, in power and awe,
Like God's waked wrath, our child
I saw!
A child no more! — harsh-browed
and strong,
He tow^ered a giant in the throng.
And dow^n his shoulders, broad and
bare.
Swept the black terror of his hair.
He raised his arm ; he smote amain ;
As round the reaper falls the grain,
So the dark host around him fell,
So sank the foes of Israel !
Again I looked. In sunlight shone
The towers and domes of Askelon.
Priest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd,
Within her idol temple bowed.
Yet one knelt not ; stark, gaunt, and
bHnd,
His arms the massive pillars twined, —
An eyeless captive, strong with hate,
He stood there like an evil Fate.
The red shrines smoked, — the trum-
pets pealed :
He stooped, — the giant columns
reeled, —
Reeled tower and fane, sank arch and
wall.
And the thick dust-cloud closed o'er
all!
Above the shriek, the crash, the
groan
Of the fallen pride of Askelon,
I heard, sheer down the echoing sky,
A voice as of an angel cry, —
MISCELLANEOUS.
The voice of him, who at our side
Sat through the golden eventide, —
Of him who, on thy aUar's blaze,
Rose fire- winged, with his song of
praise.
" Rejoice o^er Israel's broken chain,
Gray mother of the mighty slain!
Rejoice ! " it cried, *' he vanquisheth !
The strong in life is strong in death !
'^ To him shall Zorah's daughters
raise
Through coming years their hymns of
praise,
And gray old men at evening tell
Of all he wrought for Israel.
" And they who sing and they who
hear
Alike shall hold thy memory dear,
And pour their blessings on thy head,
0 mother of the mighty dead ! ''
It ceased ; and though a sound I
heard
As if great wings the still air stirred,
1 only saw the barley sheaves
And hills half hid by olive leaves.
I bowed my face, in awe and fear,
On the dear child who slumbered
near.
^^ With me, as with my only son,
O God,'' I said, '' thy will be
done!"
THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.
'^ Get ye up from the wrath of God's
terrible day!
Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and
away !
'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the ful-
ness of time.
And vengeance shall gather the har-
vest of crime ! "
The warning was spoken ; the right-
eous had gone,
And the proud ones of Sodom were
feasting alone ;
All gay was the banquet ; the revel
was long,
With the pouring of wine and the
breathing of song.
'Twas an evening of beauty; the air
was perfume,
The earth was all greenness, the trees
were all bloom ;
And softly the delicate viol was heard.
Like the murmur of love or the notes
of a bird.
And beautiful maidens moved down
in the dance.
With the magic of motion and sun-
shine of glance ;
And white arms wreathed lightly, and
tresses fell free
As the plumage of birds in some trop-
ical tree.
Where the shrines of foul idols were
lighted on high,
And wantonness tempted the lust of
the eye ;
Midst rites of obsceneness, strange,
loathsome, abhorred,
The blasphemer scoffed at the name
of the Lord.
Hark! the growl of the thunder, — the
quaking of earth !
Woe, woe to the worship, and woe to
the mirth!
The black sky has opened, — there's
flame in the air, —
The red arm of vengeance is lifted
and bare!
Then the shriek of the dying rose
wild where the song
And the low tone of love had been
whispered along ;
For the fierce flames went lightly o'ei
palace and bower.
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.
Like the red tongues of demons, to
blast and devour!
Down, — down on the fallen the red
ruin rained,
And the reveller sank with his wine-
cup undrained ;
The foot of the dancer, the music's
loved thrill,
And the shout of the laughter grew
suddenly still.
The last throb of anguish was fear-
fiilly given ;
The last eye glared forth in its mad-
ness on Heaven!
The last groan of horror rose wildly
and vain,
And death brooded over the pride of
the Plain!
THE CRUCIFIXION.
Sunlight upon Judaea's hills!
And on the waves of Galilee, —
On Jordan's stream, and on the rills
That feed the dead and sleeping sea !
Most freshly from the green wood
springs
The light breeze on its scented wings ;
And gayly quiver in the sun
The cedar tops of Lebanon!
A few more hours, — a change hath
come !
The sky is dark without a cloud !
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,
And proud knees unto earth are
bowed.
A change is on the hill of Death,
The helmed watchers pant for breath,
And turn with wild and maniac eyes
From the dark scene of sacrifice!
That Sacrifice! — the death of
Him, —
The High and ever Holy One!
Well may the conscious Heaven grow
dim,
And blacken the beholding Sun.
The wonted light hath fled away.
Night settles on the middle day,
And earthquake from his caverned
bed
Is waking with a thrill of dread!
The dead are waking underneath!
Their prison door is rent away!
And, ghastly with the seal of death.
They wander in the eye of day!
The temple of the Cherubim,
The House of God is cold and dim ;
A curse is on its trembling walls.
Its mighty veil asunder falls!
Well may the cavern-depths of Earth
Be shaken, and her mountains nod ;
Well may the sheeted dead come
forth
To gaze upon a suffering God!
Well may the temple-shrine grow
dim,
And shadows veil the Cherubim,
When He, the chosen one of Heaven,
A sacrifice for guilt is given!
And shall the sinful heart, alone,
Behold unmoved the atoning hour,
When Nature trembles on her throne,
And Death resigns his iron power?
O, shall the heart, — whose sinfulness
Gave keenness to his sore distress.
And added to his tears of blood, —
THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.
Where Time the measure of his
hours
By changeful bud and blossom
keeps,
And, like a young bride crowned with
flowers,
Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps ;
Where, to her poetVs turban stone.
The Spring her gift of flowers im-
parts,
MISCELLANEOUS.
Less sweet than those his thoughts
have sown
In the warm soil of Persian hearts :
There sat the stranger, where the
shade
Of scattered date-trees thinly lay,
While in the hot clear heaven delayed
The long and still and weary day.
Strange trees and fruits above him
hung.
Strange odors filled the sultry air,
Strange birds upon the branches
swung,
Strange insect voices murmured
there.
And strange bright blossoms shone
around.
Turned sunward from the shadowy
bowers,
As if the Gheber's soul had found
A fitting home in Iran's flowers.
Whatever he saw, whatever he heard.
Awakened feelings new and sad, —
No Christian garb, nor Christian
word.
Nor church with Sabbath-bell
chimes glad,
But Moslem graves, with turban
stones.
And mosque-spires gleaming white,
in view.
And graybeard Mollahs in low tones
Chanting their Koran service
through.
The flowers which smiled on either
hand.
Like tempting fiends, were such as
they
Which once, o'er all that Eastern land.
As gifts on demon altars lay.
As if the burning eye of Baal
The servant of his Conqueror
knew,
From skies which knew no cloudy
veil.
The Sun's hot glances smote him
through .
^'Ah me!'' the lonely stranger said,
" The hope which led my footsteps
on.
And light from heaven around them
shed.
O'er weary wave and waste, is gone!
-•Where are the harvest fields all
white.
For Truth to thrust her sickle in ?
Wliere flock the souls, like doves in
flight.
From the dark hiding-place of sin ?
'' A silent horror broods o'er all, —
The burden of a hateful spell, —
The very flowers around recall
The hoary magi's rites of hell!
'^ And what am I, o'er such a land
The banner of the Cross to bear?
Dear Lord, uphold me with thy hand.
Thy strength with human weakness
share ! ''
He ceased ; for at his very feet
In mild rebuke a floweret smiled, —
How thrilled his sinking heart to
greet
The Star-flower of the Virgin's
child!
Sown by some wandering Frank, it
drew
Its life from alien air and earth.
And told to Paynim sun and dew
The story of the Saviour's birth.
From scorching beams, in kindly
mood,
The Persian plants its beauty
screened,
And on its pagan sisterhood.
In love, the Christian floweret
leaned.
HYMNS.
113
With tears of joy the wanderer felt
The. darkness of his long despair
Before that hallowed symbol melt,
Which God's dear love had nurtured
there.
From Nature's face, that simple flower
The lines of sin and sadness swept ;
And Magian pile and Paynim bower
In peace like that of Eden slept.
Each Moslem tomb, and cypress old.
Looked holy through the sunset
air ;
And, angel-like, the Muezzin told
From tower and mosque the hour
of prayer.
With cheerful steps, the morrow's
dawn
From Shiraz saw the stranger part ;
The Star-flower of the Virgin-Born
Still blooming in his hopeful heart!
HYMNS.
FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE.
One hymn more, O my lyre!
Praise to the God above,
Of joy and life and love.
Sweeping its strings of fire !
O, who the speed of bird and wind
And sunbeam's glance will lend to
me,
That, soaring upward, I may find
My resting-place and home in
Thee? —
Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt
and gloom,
Adoreth with a fervent flame, —
Mysterious spirit! unto whom
Pertain nor sign nor name !
Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go.
Up from the cold and joyless
earth,
Back to the God who bade them
flow,
Whose moving spirit sent them
forth.
But as for me, O God ! for me.
The lowly creature of thy will,
Lingering and sad, I sigh to thee,
An earth-bound pilgrim still !
Was not my spirit born to shine
Where yonder stars and suns are
glowing?
To breathe with them the light divine
From God's own holy altar flowing?
To be, indeed, whate'er the soul
In dreams hath thirsted for so
long,—
A portion of Heaven's glorious whole
Of loveliness and song?
O, watchers of the stars at night.
Who breathe their fire, as we the
air, —
Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of
light,
O, say, is He, the Eternal, there?
Bend there around his awful throne
The seraph's glance, the angel's
knee?
Or are thy inmost depths his own,
O wild and mighty sea?
Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye
go!
Swift as the eagle's glance of fire.
Or arrows from the archer's bow.
To the far aim of your desire !
Thought after thought, ye thronging
rise.
Like spring-doves from the startled
wood,
Bearing like them your sacrifice
Of music unto God!
And shall these thoughts of joy and
love
Come back again no more to me ? —
Returning like the Patriarch's dove
Wing- weary from the eternal sea,
To bear within my longing arms
114
MISCELLANEOUS.
The promise-bough of kindlier
skies,
IM Licked fioiii the green, immortal
palms
Which shadow Paradise?
All-moving spirit! — freely forth
At thy command the strong wind
goes;
Its errand to the passive earth,
Nor art can stay, nor strength
oppose.
Until it folds its weary wing
Once more within the hand divine ;
So, weary from its wandering,
My spirit turns to thine!
Child of the sea, the mountain stream,
From its dark caverns, hurries on.
Ceaseless, by night and morning's
beam,
By evening's star and noontide^s
sun.
Until at last it sinks to rest.
Overwearied, in the waiting sea,
And moans upon its mother^s
breast, —
So turns my soul to Thee !
O Thou who bid'st the torrent flow.
Who lendest wings unto the
wind, —
Mover of all things! where art thou?
O, whither shall I go to find
The secret of thy resting-place?
Is there no holy wing for me,
That, soaring, I may search the space
Of highest heaven for Thee?
O, would I were as free to rise
As leaves on autumn's whirlwind
borne, —
The arrowy light of sunset skies.
Or sound, or ray, or star of morn,
Which melts in heaven at twilight's
close,
Or aught which soars unchecked
and free
Through earth and Heaven ; that I
might lose
Myself in finding Thee!
When the breath divine is flowing.
Zephyr-like o'er all things going.
And, as the touch of viewless fingers,
Softly on my soul it lingers.
Open to a breath the lightest,
Conscious of a touch the slightest, —
As some calm, still lake, whereon
Sinks the snowy-bosomed swan,
And the glistening water-rings
Circle round her moving wings :
W^hen my upward gaze is turning
Where the stars of heaven are burning
Through the deep and dark abyss, —
Flowers of midnight's wilderness.
Blowing with the evening's breath
Sweetly in their Maker's path :
When the breaking day is flushing
All the east, and light is gushing
Upward through the horizon's haze,
Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays,
Spreading, until all above
Overflows with joy and love.
And below, on earth's green bosom,
All is changed to light and blossom :
When my waking fancies over
Forms of brightness flit and hover,
Holy as the seraphs are.
Who by Zion's fountains wear
On their foreheads, white and broad,
"Holiness unto the Lord!"
When, inspired with rapture high,
It would seem a single sigh
Could a world of love create, —
That my life could know no date.
And my eager thoughts could fill
Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still ! —
Then, O Father! thou alone.
From the shadow of thy throne,
To the sighing of my breast
And its rapture answerest.
All my thoughts, which, upward
winging,
THE FEMALE MARTYR.
115
Bathe where thy own light is spring-
ing'—
All my yearnings to be free
Are as echoes answering thee !
Seldom upon lips of mine.
Father! rests that name of thine, —
Deep within my inmost breast,
In the secret place of mind,
Like an awful presence shrined,
Doth the dread idea rest!
Hushed and holy dwells it there, —
Prompter of the silent prayer.
Lifting up my spirit^s eye
And its faint, but earnest cry.
From its dark and cold abode.
Unto thee, my Guide and God!
THE FEMALE MARTYR.
[Mary G , aged 18, a "Sister of
CHARrrv," died in one of our Atlantic
cities, during the prevalence of the Indian
cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon
the sick.]
^' Bring out your dead!" The mid-
night street
Heard and gave back the hoarse,
low call ;
Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet, —
Glanced through the dark the coarse
white sheet, —
Her coffin and her pall.
^' What — only one ! " the brutal hack-
man said.
As, with an oath, he spurned away
the dead.
How sunk the inmost hearts of all,
As rolled that dead-cart slowly by.
With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-
fall!
The dying turned him to the wall,
To hear it and to die! —
Onw^ard it rolled ; while oft its driver
stayed.
And hoarsely clamored, '' Ho ! — bring
out your dead.^"*
It paused beside the burial-place ;
'^ Toss in your load! '' — and it was
done. —
With quick hand and averted face,
Hastily to the grave's embrace
They cast them, one by one, —
Stranger and friend, — the evil and the
just.
Together trodden in the churchyard
dust!
And thou, young martyr! — thou wast
there, —
No white-robed sisters round thee
trod, —
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer
Rose through the damp and noisome
air.
Giving thee to thy God ;
Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed
taper gave
Grace to the dead, and beauty to the
grave!
Yet, gentle sufferer! there shall be.
In every heart of kindly feeling,
A rite as holy paid to thee
As if beneath the convent-tree
Thy sisterhood were kneeling.
At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels,
keeping
Their tearful watch around thy place
of sleeping.
For thou wast one in whom the light
Of Heaven's own love was kindled
well.
Enduring with a martyr's might.
Through weary day and wakeful night
Far more than words may tell :
Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and un-
known, —
Thy mercies measured by thy God
alone!
Where manly hearts were failing, —
where
The throngflil street grew foul with
death,
ii6
MISCELLANEOUS.
O high-souled martyr! — thou wast
there,
Inhaling, from the loathsome air,
Poison with every breath.
Yet shrinking not from offices of dread
For the wrung dying, and the uncon-
scious dead.
And, where the sickly taper shed
Its light through vapors, damp, con-
fined,
Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, —
A new Electra by the bed
Of suffering human-kind!
Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay,
To that pure hope which fadeth not
away.
Innocent teacher of the high
And holy mysteries of Heaven!
How turned to thee each glazing eye.
In mute and awful sympathy.
As thy low prayers were given ;
And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore,
the while,
An angeFs features, — a deliverer's
smile!
A blessed task! — and worthy one
Who, turning from the world, as
thou.
Before life's pathway had begun
To leave its spring-time flower and sun.
Had sealed her early vow ;
Giving to God her beauty and her
youth,
Her pure affections and her guileless
truth.
Earth may not claim thee. Nothing
here
Could be for thee a meet reward ;
Thine is a treasure far more dear, —
Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear
Of living mortal heard, —
The joys prepared, — the promised
bliss above, —
The holy presence of Eternal Love!
Sleep on in peace. The earth has
not
A nobler name than thine shall be.
The deeds by martial manhood
wrought.
The lofty energies of thought,
The fire of poesy, —
These have but frail and fading hon-
ors ; — thine
Shall Time unto Eternity consign.
Yea, and when thrones shall crumble
down,
And human pride and grandeur
fall,—
The herald's line of long renown, —
The mitre and the kingly crown, —
Perishing glories all!
The pure devotion of thy generous
heart
Shall live in Heaven, of which it was
a part.
THE FROST SPIRIT.
He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his foot-
steps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow.
Pie has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green
came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth.
He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit com.es! — from the frozen
Labrador, —
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er, —
THE VAUDOIS TEACHER. 117
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow!
He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes! — on the rushing Northern
blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below.
He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — and the quiet lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater\s heel;
And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful -silence pass.
He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! — let us meet him as we may,
And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away ;
And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light dances high.
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by!
THE VAUDOIS TEACHER.
" O LADY fair, these silks of mine are beautiful and rare, —
The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's queen might wear;
And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie ;
I have brought them with me a weary way, — will my gentle lady buy? ^^
And the lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls ;
And she placed their price in the old man's hand, and lightly turned away,
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, — " My gentle lady, stay! ''
'' O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings.
Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings, —
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay,
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way! '■"
The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her form of grace was seen.
Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved their clasping pearls
between ;
" Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old, —
And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold."
The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and meagre book,
Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took!
'* Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee!
Nay — keep thy gold — I ask it not, for the word of God is free ! "
ii8
MISCELLANEOUS.
The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high-born maiden's mind,
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth,
And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth !
And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil faith had power.
The courtly knights of her father's train, and the maidens of her bower-,
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet untrod.
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God!
THE CALL OF THE CHRIS-
TIAN.
Not always as the whirlwind's rush
On Horeb's mount of fear,
Not always as the burning bush
To Midian's shepherd seer.
Nor as the awful voice which came
To Israel's prophet bards.
Nor as the tongues of cloven flame,
Nor gift of fearful words, —
Not always thus, with outward sign
Of fire or voice from Heaven,
The message of aL truth divine.
The call of God is given!
Awaking in the human heart
Love for the true and right, —
Zeal for the Christian's '^ better part,''
Strength for the Christian's fight.
Nor unto manhood's heart alone
The holy influence steals :
Warm with a rapture not its own,
The heart of woman feels !
As she who by Samaria's wall
The Saviour's errand sought, —
As those who with the fervent Paul
And meek Aquila wrought :
Or those meek ones whose martyrdom
Rome's gathered grandeur saw :
Or those who in their Alpine home
Braved the Crusader's war.
When the green Vaudois, trembling,
heard,
Through all its vales of death,
The martyr's song of triumph poured
From woman's failins: breath.
And gently, by a thousand things
Which o'er our spirits pass.
Like breezes o'er the harp's fine
strings.
Or vapors o'er a glass,
eaving their token strai
Of music or of shade.
The summons to the right and true
And merciful is made.
O, then, if gleams of truth and light
Flash o'er thy waiting mind.
Unfolding to thy mental sight
The wants of human-kind ;
If, brooding over human grief.
The earnest wish is known
To soothe and gladden with relief
An anguish not thine own ;
Though heralded with naught of fear.
Or outward sign or show ;
Though only to the inward ear
It whispers soft and low ;
Though dropping, as the manna fell,
Unseen, yet from above.
Noiseless as dew-fall, heed it well, —
Thy Father's call of love !
MY SOUL AND I.
Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark
I would question thee.
Alone in the shadow drear and stark
With God and me !
What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth or ease.
Or heaping up dust from year to year?
" Nay, none of these ! "
MY SOUL AND I.
119
Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight
Whose eye looks still
And steadily on thee through the
night :
^^To do his will!''
What hast thou done, O soul of
mine,
That thou tremblest so ? —
Hast thou wrought histtask, and kept
the line
He bade thee go?
What, silent all ! — art sad of cheer?
Art fearful now ?
When God seemed far and men were
near,
How brave wert thou !
Aha! thou tremblest! — well I see
Thou 'rt craven grown.
Is it so hard with God and me
To stand alone? —
Summon thy sunshine bravery back,
O wretched sprite !
Let me hear thy voice through this
deep and black
Abysmal night.
What hast thou wrought for Right and
Truth,
For God and Man,
From the golden hours of bright-eyed
youth
To life's mid span ?
Ah, soul of mine, thy tones I hear,
But weak and low.
Like far sad murmurs on my ear
They come and go.
" I have wrestled stoutly with the
Wrong,
And borne the Right
From beneatli the footfall of the throng
To life and light.
" Wherever Freedom shivered a chain,
God speed, quoth I ;
To Error amidst her shouting train
I gave the lie."
Ah, soul of mine ! ah, soul of mine !
Thy deeds are well :
Were they wrought for Truth's sake or
for thine ?
My soul, pray tell.
"Of all the work my hand hath
wrought
Beneath the sky.
Save a place in kindly human thought,
No gain have L"
Go to, go to ! — for thy very self
Thy deeds were done :
Thou for fome, the miser for pelf,
Your end is one !
And where art thou going, soul of
mine ?
Canst see the end?
And whither this troubled life of thine
Evermore doth tend ?
What daunts thee now ? — what shakes
thee so?
My sad soul say.
" I see a cloud like a curtain low
Hang o'er my way.
" Whither I go I cannot tell :
That cloud hangs black,
High as the heaven and deep as hell
Across my track.
" I see its shadow coldly enwrap
The souls before.
Sadly they enter it, step by step.
To return no more.
"They shrink, they shudder, dear
God ! they kneel
To thee in prayer.
They shut their eyes on the cloud, but
feel
That it still is there.
"In vain they turn from the dread
Before
MISCELLANEOUS.
To the Known arid Gone ;
For while gazing behind them ever-
more
Their feet gHde on.
" Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale
faces
A light begin
To tremble, as if from holy places
And shrines within.
"And at times methinks their cold
lips move
With hymn and prayer,
As if somewhat of awe, but more of
love
And hope were there.
" I call on the souls who have left the
light
To reveal their lot ;
I bend mine ear to that wall of night,
And they answer not.
" But I hear around me sighs of pain
And the cry of fear,
And a sound like the slow sad drop-
ping of rain,
Each drop a tear !
"Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by
day
I am moving thither:
I must pass beneath it on my way —
God pity me! — Whither? '"■
Ah, soul of mine! so brave and wise
In the life-storm loud.
Fronting so calmly all human eyes
In the sunlit crowd!
Now standing apart with God and me
Thou art weakness all,
Gazing vainly after the things to be
Through Death's dread wall.
But never for this, never for this
Was thy being lent ;
For the craven's fear is but selfishness,
Like his merriment.
Folly and Fear are sisters twain : •
One closing her eyes,
' The other peopling the dark inane
With spectral lies.
Know well, my soul, God's hand con-
trols
Whatever thou fearest ;
Round him in calmest music rolls
Whatever thou hearest.
What to thee is shadow, to him is
day.
And the end he knoweth.
And not on a blind and aimless way
The spirit goeth.
Man sees no future, — a phantom
show
Is alone before him :
Past Time is dead, and the grasses
grow.
And flowers bloom o'er him.
Nothing before, nothing behind ;
The steps of Faith
Fall on the seeming void, and find
The rock beneath.
The Present, the Present is all thou
hast
For thy sure possessing ;
Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast
Till it gives its blessing.
Why fear the night? why shrink from
Death,
That phantom wan?
There is nothing in heaven or earth
beneath
Save God and man.
Peopling the shadows we turn from
Him
And from one another ;
All is spectral and vague and dim
Save God and our brother!
Like warp and woof all destinies
Are woven fast,
TO A FRIEND.
lii
Linked in sympathy like the keys
Its thickest folds when about thee
Of an organ vast.
drawn
Let sunlight in.
Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar ;
Break but one
Then of what is to be, and of what is
Of a thousand keys, and the paining
done,
jar
Why queriest thou? —
Through all will run.
The past and the time to be are one,
And both are now!
O restless spirit! wherefore strain
Beyond thy sphere ?
Heaven and hell, with their joy and
TO A FRIEND,
pain,
Are now and here.
ON HER RETURN FROM EUROPE.
Back to thyself is measured well
How smiled the land of France
All thou hast given ;
Under thy blue eye's glance,
Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present
Light-hearted rover!
hell,
Old walls of chateaux gray.
His bliss, thy heaven.
Towers of an early day.
Which the Three Colors play
And in life, in death, in dark and light.
Flauntingly over.
All are in God's care ;
Sound the black abyss, pierce the
Now midst the brilliant train
deep of night.
Thronging the banks of Seine :
And he is there!
Now midst the splendor
Of the wild Alpine range,
All which is real now remaineth,
Waking with change on change
And fadeth never :
Thoughts in thy young heart strange,
The hand which upholds it now sus-
Lovely, and tender.
taineth
The soul forever.
Vales, soft Elysian,
Like those in the vision
Leaning on him, make with reverent
Of Mirza, when, dreaming,
meekness
He saw the long hollow dell.
His own thy will.
Touched by the prophet's spell.
And with strength from Him shall thy
Into an ocean swell
utter weakness
With its isles teeming.
Life's task fulfil ;
Cliffs wrapped in snows of years.
And that cloud itself, which now be-
Splintering with icy spears
fore thee
Autumn's blue heaven :
Lies dark in view.
Loose rock and frozen slide.
Shall with beams of light from the
Hung on the mountain-side.
inner glory
Waiting their hour to glide
Be stricken through.
Downward, storm-driven !
And like meadow mist through au-
Rhine stream, by castle old,
tumn's dawn
Baron's and robber's hold,
Uprolling thin,
Peacefully flowing;
MISCELLANEOUS.
Sweeping through vineyards green,
Or where the chffs are seen
O'er the broad wave between
Grim shadows throwing.
Or, where St. Peter's dome
Swells o'er eternal Rome,
Vast, dim, and solemn, —
Hymns ever chanting low, —
Censers swung to and fro, —
Sable stoles sweeping slow
Cornice and column!
O, as from each and all
Will there not voices call
Evermore back again?
In the mind's gallery
Wilt thou not always see
Dim phantoms beckon thee
O'er that old track again?
New forms thy presence haunt, —
New voices softly chant, —
New faces greet thee! —
Pilgrims from many a shrine
Hallowed by poet's line.
At memory's magic sign,
Rising to meet thee.
And when such visions come
Unto thy olden home.
Will they not waken
Deep thoughts of Him whose hand
Led thee o'er sea and land
Back to the household band
Whence thou wast taken?
While, at the sunset time,
Swells the cathedral's chime,
Yet, in thy dreaming,
While to thy spirit's eye
Yet the vast mountains lie
Piled in the Switzer's sky.
Icy and gleaming:
Prompter of silent prayer.
Be the wild picture there
In the mind's chamber,
And, through each coming day
Him who, as staff and stay,
Watched o'er thy wandering way,
Freshly remember.
So, when the call shall be
Soon or late unto thee.
As to all given.
Still may that picture live.
All its fair forms survive,
And to thy spirit give
Gladness in Heaven!
THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.
A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE
GERMAN.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently comes :
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again ;
And yet in tenderest love, our dear
And Heavenly Father sends him here.
There 's quiet in that Angel's glance.
There 's rest in his still countenance !
He mocks no grief with idle cheer.
Nor wounds with words the mourner's
ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.
Angel of Patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brows with cooling
palm ;
To lay the storms of hope and fear.
And reconcile life\s smile and tear ;
The throbs of wounded pride to still.
And make our own our Father's will !
O thou who mourn est on thy way.
With longings for the close of day ;
He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, " Be resigned :
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things
well!"
FOLLEN.
123
FOLLEN.
ON READING HIS ESSAY ON THE
*^ FUTURE STATE."
Friend of my soul! — as with moist
eye
I look up from this page of thine,
Is it a dream that thou art nigh,
Thy mild face gazing into mine?
That presence seems before me now,
A placid heaven of sweet moonrise,
When, dew-like, on the earth below
Descends the quiet of the skies.
C^ The calm brow through the parted
^ hair,
The gentle lips which knew no
guile.
Softening the blue eye's thoughtful
care
With the bland beauty of their
smile.
Ah me! — at times that last dread
scene
Of Frost and Fire and moaning
Sea,
Will cast its shade of doubt between
The failing eyes of Faith and thee.
Yet, lingering o^er thy charmed page,
Where through the twiUght air of
earth,"
Alike enthusiast and sage.
Prophet and bard, thou gazest
forth ;
Lifting the Future's solemn veil ;
The reaching of a mortal hand
To put aside the cold and pale
Cloud-curtains of the Unseen Land ;
In thoughts which answer to my own,
In words which reach my inward
ear,
Like whispers from the void Un-
known,
I feel thy living presence here.
The waves which lull thy body's rest,
The dust thy pilgrim footsteps
trod,
Unwasted, through each change, at-
test
The fixed economy of God.
Shall these poor elements outlive
The mind whose kingly will they
wrought ?
Their gross unconsciousness survive
Thy godlike energy of thought?
Thou livest, Follen! — not in vain
Hath thy fine spirit meekly borne
The burthen of Life's cross of pain.
And the thorned crown of suffer! n<x
worn .
O
while Life's solemn mystery
glooms
Around us like a dungeon's wall, —
Silent earth's pale and crowded tombs.
Silent the heaven which bends o'er
all! —
While day by day our loved ones
glide
In spectral silence, hushed and lone.
To the cold shadows which divide
The living from the dread Un-
known ;
While even on the closing eye.
And on the lip which moves in
vain.
The seals of that stern mystery
Their undiscovered trust retain ; —
And only midst the gloom of death,
Its mournful doubts and haunting
fears,
Two pale, sweet angels, Hope and
Faith,
Smile dimly on us through their
tears ;
'T is something to a heart like mine
To think of thee as living yet ;
124
MISCELLANEOUS.
To feel that such a light as thine
Could not in utter darkness set.
Less dreary seems the untried way
Since thou hast left thy footprints
there,
And beams of mournful beauty play
Round the sad Angel's sable hair.
Oh! — at this hour when half the
sky
Is glorious with its evening light,
And fair broad fields of summer lie
Hung o'er with greenness in my
sight ;
with rain
The sunset's golden walls are seen,
With clover-bloom and yellow grain
And wood-draped hill and stream
between ;
I long to know if scenes like this
Are hidden from an angePs eyes ;
If earth\s familiar loveliness
Haunts not thy heaven's serener
skies.
For sweetly here upon thee grew
The lesson which that beauty gave,
The ideal of the Pure and True
In earth and sky and gliding wave.
And it may be that all which lends
The soul an upward impulse here,
With a diviner beauty blends.
And greets us in a holier sphere.
fell
The humbler flowers of earth may
twine ;
And simple draughts from childhood's
well
Blend with the angel-tasted wine.
But be the prying vision veiled.
And let the seeking lips be dumb, —
Where even seraph eyes have failed
Shall mortal blindness seek to
We only know that thou hast gone.
And that the same returnless tide
Which bore thee from us still glides
on,
And we who mourn thee with it
glide.
On all thou lookest we shall look.
And to our gaze erelong shall turn
That page of God's mysterious book
We so much wish, yet dread to
learn.
With Him, before whose awful power
Thy spirit bent its trembling
knee ; —
Who, in the silent greeting flower.
And forest leaf, looked out on
thee, —
We leave thee, with a trust serene,
Which Time, nor Change, nor
Death can move.
While with thy childHke faith we
lean.
On Him whose dearest name is
Love !
TO THE REFORMERS OF
ENGLAND.
God bless ye, brothers! — in the fight
Ye 're waging now, ye cannot fail.
For better is your sense of right
Than king-craft's triple mail.
Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban.
More mighty is your simplest word ;
The free heart of an honest man
Than crosier or the sword.
Go, — let your bloated Church rehearse
The lesson it has learned so well ;
It moves not with its prayer or curse
The gates of heaven or hell.
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME.
I2S
Let the State scaffold rise again, —
DiclFreedom die when Russell died ?
Forget ye how the blood of Vane
From earth's green bosom cried ?
The great hearts of your olden time
Are beating with you, full and strong
All holy memories and sublime
And glorious round ye throng.
The bluff, bold men of Runnymede
Are with ye still in times like these ;
The shades of England's mighty dead,
Your cloud of witnesses !
The truths ye urge are borne abroad
By every wind and every tide ;
The voice of Nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.
The weapons which your hands have
found
Are those which Heaven itself has
WTOUght,
Light, Truth, and Love ; — your battle-
ground
The free, broad field of Thought.
No partial, selfish purpose breaks
The simple beauty of your plan,
Nor lie from throne or altar shakes
Your steady faith in man.
The languid pulse of England starts
And bounds beneath your words of
power,
The beating of her million hearts
Is with you at this hour!
O ye who, with undoubting eyes,
Through present cloud and gather-
ing storm,
Behold the span of Freedom's skies.
And sunshine soft and warm, —
Press bravely onward! — not in vain
Your generous trust in human-kind ;
The good which bloodshed could not
gain
Your peaceful zeal shall find.
Press on! — the triumph shall be won
Of common rights and equal laws,
Tlie glorious dream of Harrington,
And Sidney's good old cause.
Blessing the cotter and the crown.
Sweetening worn Labor's bitter cup ;
And, plucking not the highest down,
Lifting the lowest up.
Press on ! — and we who may not share
The toil or glory of your fight
May ask, at least, in earnest prayer,
God's blessing on the right!
THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN
TIME.
The Quaker of the olden time! —
How calm and firm and true,
Unspotted by its wrong and crime.
He walked the dark earth through.
The lust of power, the love of gain,
The thousand lures of sin
Around him, had no power to stain
The purity within.
With that deep insight which detects
All great things in the small.
And know\s how each man's life affects
The spiritual life of all,
He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law ;
The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw.
He felt that wrong with wTong partakes.
That nothing stands alone,
That wdioso gives the motive, makes
His brothers sin his own.
And, pausing not for doubtful choice
Of evils great or small.
He listened to that inward voice
Which called away from all.
O spirit of that early day,
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
126
MISCELLANEOUS.
Give strength the evil to forsake,
The cross of Truth to bear,
And love and reverent fear to make
Our daily lives a prayer!
THE REFORMER.
All grim and soiled and brown with
tan,
I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man
Along his path.
The Church, beneath her trembling
dome
Essayed in vain her ghostly charm :
Wealth shook within his gilded home
With strange alarm.
Fraud from his secret chambers fled
Before the sunlight bursting in :
Sloth drew her pillow o^er her head
To drown the din.
" Spare,'' Art implored, " yon holy pile ;
That grand, old, time-worn turret
spare " ;
Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle.
Cried out, " Forbear ! "
Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped for his old accustomed stone.
Leaned on his staff, and wept to find
His seat overthrown.
Young Romance raised his dreamy
eyes,
O'erhung with paly locks of gold, —
"Why smite," he asked in sad surprise,
"The fair, the old?"
Yet louder rang the Strong One's
stroke,
Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam;
Shuddering and sick of heart I woke.
As from a dream.
I looked : aside the dust-cloud rolled, —
The Waster seemed the Builder too ;
Up springing from the ruined Old
I saw the New.
'T was but the ruin of the bad, —
The wasting of the wrong and ill ;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Was living still.
Calm grew the brows of him I feared ;
The frown which awed me passed
away,
And left behind a smile which cheered
Like breaking day.
The grain grew green on battle-plains.
O'er swarded war-mounds grazed
the cow ;
e stood forg
The spade and plough.
Where frowned the fort, paviHons
gay
And cottage windows, flower-en-
twined,
Looked out upon the peaceful bay
And hills behind.
Through vine-wreathed cups with wine
once red,
The lights on brimming crystal fell.
Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head
And mossy well.
Through prison walls, like Heaven-
sent hope,
Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams
strayed,
And with the idle gallows-rope
The young child played.
Where the doomed victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours.
Glad school-girls, answering to the
bell,
Came crowned with flowers.
Grown wiser for the lesson given,
I fear no longer, for I know
That, where the share is deepest driven.
The best fruits grow.
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
127
The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone, —
These wait their doom, from that
great law
Which makes the past time serve
to-day ;
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.
O, backward-looking son of time!
The new is old, the old is new.
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.
So wisely taught the Indian seer ;
Destroying Seva, forming Brahm,
Who wake by turns Earth's love and
fear.
Are one, the same.
As idly as, in that old day.
Thou mournest, did thy sires repine,
So, in his time, thy child grown gray
Shall sigh for thine.
Yet, not the less for them or thou
The eternal step of Progress beats
To that great anthem, calm and slow,
Which God repeats !
Take heart ! — the Waster builds
again,—
A charmed life old Goodness hath ;
The tares may perish, — but the grain
Is not for death.
God works in all things ; all obey
His first propulsion from the night :
Ho, wake and watch ! — the world is
gray
With morning light !
THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.
Look on him ! — through his dungeon
grate
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and
late.
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed.
His hand upholds his drooping
head, —
His bloodless cheek is seamed and
hard.
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard ;
And o^er his bony fingers flow
No grateful fire before him glow^s,
And yet the winter's breath is
chill ;
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill !
Silent, save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip ;
O sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chained and desolate !
Just God! why Hes that old man
there?
A murderer shares his prison bed,
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid
hair,
Gleam on him, fierce and red ;
And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear.
And, or in wakefulness or sleep.
Nerve, flesh, and pulses thrill and
creep
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson with murder, touches him !
What has the gray-haired prisoner
done?
Has murder stained his hands with
gore?
Not so ; his crime's a fouler one ;
God made the old man poor!
For this he shares a felon's cell, —
The fittest earthly type of hell !
For this, the boon for w^hich he poured
His young blood on the invader's
sword,
128
MISCELLANEOUS.
And counted light the fearful cost, —
His blood-gained liberty is lost!
And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, dropped thy blood as
rain
On Concord's field, and Bunker's
crest.
And Saratoga's plain?
Look forth, thou man of many scars.
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars;
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument upreared to thee, —
Piled granite and a prison cell, —
The land repays thy service well !
Go, ring the bells and fire the guns.
And fling the starry banner out ;
Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping
ones
Give back their cradle-shout ;
Let boastful eloquence declaim
Of honor, Hberty, and fame ;
Still let the poet's strain be heard.
With glory for each second word.
And everything with breath agree
To praise '^our glorious liberty! ''
But when the patron cannon jars.
That prison's cold and gloomy wall.
And through its grates the stripes
and stars
Rise on the wind and fall, —
Think ye that prisoner's aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer?
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Ls kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of
limb.
What is your carnival to him ?
Down with the law that binds him
thus !
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of God and human kind!
Open the prison's living tomb.
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code
To the free sun and air of God ;
No longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's
hand.
LINES,
WRITTEN ON READING PAMPHLETS
PUBLISHED BY CLERGYMEN AGAINST
THE ABOLITION OF THE GALLOWS.
The suns of eighteen centuries have
shone
Since the Redeemer walked with
man, and made
The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of
stone.
And mountain moss, a pillow for his
head ;
And He, who wandered with the
peasant Jew,
And broke w^ith publicans the bread
of shame.
And drank, with blessings in his
Father's name.
The water which Samaria's outcast
drew.
Hath now his temples upon every
shore.
Altar and shrine and priest, — and
incense dim
Evermore rising, with low prayer
and hymn,
From lips which press the temple's
marble floor.
Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread
Cross He bore.
Yet as of old, when, meekly " doing
good,"
He fed a blind and selfish multitude,
And even the poor companions of his
lot
With their dim earthly vision knew
him not.
How ill are his high teachings under-
stood!
LINES.
129
Where He hath spoken Liberty, the
priest
At his own altar binds the chain
anew ;
Where He hath bidden to Lifers equal
feast,
The starving many wait upon the
few ;
Where He hath spoken Peace, his
name hath been
The loudest war-cry of contending
men ;
Priests, pale with vigils, in his name
have blessed
The unsheathed sword, and laid the
spear in rest,
C Wet the war-banner with their sacred
wine.
And crossed its blazon with the holy
sign;
Yea, in his name who bade the erring
live,
And daily taught his lesson, — to for-
give ! —
Twisted the cord and edged the
murderous steel ;
And, with his words of mercy on their
lips.
Hung gloating o'er the pincer's burn-
ing grips.
And the grim horror of the strain-
ing wheel ;
Fed the slow flame which gnawed the
victim's limb,
Who saw before his searing eyeballs
swim
The image of their Christ in cruel
zeal.
Through the black torment-smoke,
held mockingly to him!
III.
The blood which mingled with the
desert sand.
And beaded with its red and
ghastly dew
The vines and olives of the Holy
Land, —
The shrieking curses of the hunted
Jew, —
The white-sown bones of heretics,
wherever
They sank beneath the Crusade's holy
spear, —
Goa's dark dungeons, — Malta's sea-
washed cell,
Where with the hymns the ghostly
fathers sung
Mingled the groans by subtle tor-
ture wrung.
Heaven's anthem blending with the
shriek of hell!
The midnight of Bartholomew, — the
stake
Of Smithfield, and that thrice-ac-
cursed flame
Which Calvin kindled by Geneva's
lake, —
New England's scaffold, and the
priestly sneer
Which mocked its victims in that
hour of fear,
When guilt itself a human tear
might claim, —
Bear witness, O thou wronged and
merciful One!
That Earth's most hateful crimes
have in thy name been done!
IV.
Thank God! that I have lived to see
the time
When the great truth begins at last
to find
An utterance from the deep heart
of mankind.
Earnest and clear, that all Revenge
IS Crime!
That man is holier than a creed, —
that all
Restraint upon him must consult
his good,
Hope's sunshine linger on his prison
wall.
And Love look in upon his soHtude.
The beautiful lesson which our Sav-
iour tauo^ht
I30.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Through long, dark centuries its way
liath wrought
Into the commoii mind and popular
thought ;
And words, to whicli by Galilee's lake
shore
The humble fishers listened with
hushed oar,
Have found an echo in the general
heart,
And of the public faith become a
living part.
Who shall arrest this tendency? —
Bring back
The cells of Venice and the bigot's
rack?
Harden the softening human heart
again
To cold indifference to a brother's
pain ?
Ye most unhappy men ! — who, turned
away
From the mild sunshine of the Gospel
day.
Grope in the shadows of Man's twi-
light time.
What mean ye, that wdth ghoul-like
zest ye brood,
O'er those foul altars streaming with
warm blood.
Permitted in another age and
clime ?
Why cite that law with w4iich the bigot
Jew
Rebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he
knew
No evil in the Just One? — Where-
fore turn
To the dark cruel past ? — Can ye not
learn
From the pure Teacher's life, how
mildly free
Is the great Gospel of Humanity?
The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and
no more
Mexitli's altars soak with human gore.
No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke
Through the green arches of the Dru-
id's oak ;
And ye of milder faith, with your high
claim
Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest
name,
Will ye become the Druids of our
time !
Set up your scaffold-altars in our
land.
And, consecrators of Law's darkest a
crime, fl
Urge to its loathsome work the ■
hangman's hand? I
Beware, — lest human nature, roused *
at last,
From its peeled shoulder your encum-
brance cast.
And, sick to loathing of your cry
for blood.
Rank ye with those who led their vic-
tims round
The Celt's red altar and the Indian's
mound.
Abhorred of Earth and Heaven, —
a pagan brotherhood !
THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.
Far from his close and noisome cell.
By grassy lane and sunny stream.
Blown clover field and strawberry
dell,
And green and meadow freshness, fell
The footsteps of his dream.
Again from careless feet the dew
Of summers misty morn he shook ;
Again with merry heart he threw
His light line in the rippling brook.
Back crowded all his school-day
joys.—
He urged the ball and quoit again.
And heard the shout of laughing boys
Come ringing down the walnut glen.
Again he felt the western breeze,
With scent of flowers and crisping
hay;
THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.
131
And down again through wind-stirred
trees
He saw the quivering sunlight play.
An angel in home's vine-hung door,
Ke saw his sister smile once more ;
Once more the truant's brown-locked
head
Upon his mother's knees was laid,
And sweetly lulled to slumber there.
With evening s holy hymn and prayer !
II.
He woke. At once on heart and brain
The present Terror rushed again, —
Clanked on his limbs the felon s chain !
He woke, to hear the church-tower tell
Time's footfall on the conscious bell.
And, shuddering, feel that clanging
din
His life's last hour had ushered in ;
To see within his prison-yard.
Through the small window, iron
barred,
The gallows shadow rising dim
Between the sunrise heaven and
him, —
A horror in God's blessed air, —
A blackness in his morning light, —
Like some foul devil-altar there
Built up by demon hands at night.
And, maddened by that evil sight,
Dark, horrible, confused, and strange,
A chaos of wild, weltering change,
All power of check and guidance gone,
Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on.
In vain he strove to breathe a prayer.
In vain he turned the Holy Book,
He only heard the gallows-stair
Creak as the wind its timbers shook.
No dream for him of sin forgiven.
While still that baleful spectre stood,
With its hoarse murmur, ^* Blood for
Blood I "
Between him and the pitying Heaven !
III.
Low on his dungeon floor he knelt.
And smote his breast, and on his
chain,
WHiose iron clasp he always felt.
His hot tears fell like rain ;
And near him, with the cold, calm
look
And tone of one whose formal part,
Unwarmed, unsoftened of the
heart.
Is measured out by rule and book.
With placid Hp and tranquil blood.
The hangman's ghostly ally stood.
Blessing with solemn text and word
The gallows-drop and strangling cord ;
Lending the sacred Gospel's awe
And sanction to the crime of Law.
He saw the victim's tortured brow, —
The sweat of anguish starting
there, —
The record of a nameless woe
In the dim eye's imploring stare.
Seen hideous through the long, damp
hair, —
Fingers of ghastly skin and bone
Working and writhing on the stone ! —
And heard, by mortal terror wrung
From heaving breast and stiffened
tongue,
The choking sob and low hoarse
prayer ;
As o'er his half-crazed fancy came
A vision of the eternal flame, —
Its smoking cloud of agonies, —
Its demon-worm that never dies, —
The everlasting rise and fall
Of fire-waves round the infernal wall ;
While high above that dark red flood,
Black, giant-like, the gallows stood ;
Two busy fiends attending there :
One with cold mocking rite and prayer.
The other with impatient grasp.
Tightening the death-rope's strangling
clasp.
The unfelt rite at length was done, —
The prayer unheard at length was
said, —
An hour had passed : — the noonday
sun
132
MISCELLANEOUS.
Smote on the features of the dead!
And he who stood the doomed beside,
Cahn ganger of the swelHng tide
Of mortal agony and fear,
Heeding with curious eye and ear
Whatever revealed the keen excess
Of man^s extremest wretchedness :
And who in that dark anguish saw
An earnest of the victim's fate,
The vengeful terrors of God^s law,
The kindlings of Eternal hate, —
The first drops of that fiery rain
Which beats the dark red realm of
pain, ^
Did he uplift his earnest cries
Against the crime of Law, which
gave
His brother to that fearful grave,
Whereon Hope's moonlight never lies,
And Faith's white blossoms never
wave
To the soft breath of Memory's
sighs ; —
Which sent a spirit marred and
stained,
By fiends of sin possessed, profaned.
In madness and in blindness stark.
Into the silent, unknown dark?
No, — from the wild and shrinking
dread
With which he saw the victim led
Beneath the dark veil which divides
Ever the living from the dead,
And Nature's solemn secret hides.
The man of prayer can only draw
New reasons for his bloody law ;
New faith in staying Murder's hand
By murder at that Law's command ;
New reverence for the gallows-rope.
As human Nature's latest hope ;
Last relic of the good old time.
When Power found license for its
crime,
And held a writhing world in check
By that fell cord about its neck ;
Stifled Sedition's rising shout.
Choked the young breath of Freedom
out.
And timely checked the words which
sprung
From Heresy's forbidden tongue;
While in its noose of terror bound.
The Church its cherished union found.
Conforming, on the Moslem plan,
The motley-colored mind of man.
Not by the Koran and the Sword,
But by the Bible and the Cord!
VI.
O, Thou ! at whose rebuke the grave
Back to warm life its sleeper gave.
Beneath whose sad and tearful glance
The cold and changed countenance
Broke the still horror of its trance.
And, waking, saw with joy above,
A brother's face of tenderest love ;
Thou, unto wdiom the blind and lame.
The sorrowing and the sin-sick came.
And from thy very garment's hem
Drew life and healing unto them,
The burden of thy holy faith
Was love and life, not hate and death,
Man's demon ministers of pain.
The fiends of his revenge were sent
From thy pure Gospel's element
To their dark home again.
Thy name is Love! What, then, is
he.
Who in that name the gallows rears,
An awful altar built to thee.
With sacrifice of blood and tears?
O, once again thy healing lay
On the blind eyes which knew thee
not
And let the light of thy pure day
Melt in upon his darkened thought.
Soften his hard, cold heart, and show
The power which in forbearance
lies.
And let him feel that mercy now
Is better than old sacrifice!
As on the White Sea's charmed shore,
" The Parsee sees his holy hill
With dunnest smoke-clouds curtained
o'er.
Yet knows beneath them, evermore,
The low, pale fire is quivering still ;
RANDOLrH OF ROANOKE.
^33
So, underneath its clouds of sin,
The heart of man retaineth yet
GleanVs of its holy origin ;
And half-quenched stars that never
set,
Dim colors of its faded bow.
And early beauty, linger there,
And o'er its wasted desert blow
Faint breathings of its morning air,
O, never yet upon the scroll
Of the sin-stained, but priceless soul,
Hath Heaven inscribed *' De-
spair!''
Cast not the clouded gem away,
Quench not the dim but living ray, —
My brother man, Beware!
With that deep voice which from the
skies
Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice,
God's angel cries. Forbear !
RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.
O Mother Earth ! upon thy lap
Thy weary ones receiving.
And o'er them, silent as a dream.
Thy grassy mantle weaving.
Fold softly in thy long embrace
That heart so worn and broken,
And cool its pulse of fire beneath
Thy shadows old and oaken.
Shut out from him the bitter word
And serpent hiss of scorning ;
Nor let the storms of yesterday
Disturb his quiet morning.
Breathe over him forgetful n ess
Of all save deeds of kindness,
And, save to smiles of grateful eyes.
Press down his lids in blindness.
There, where with living ear and eye
He heard Potomac's flowing.
And, through his tall ancestral trees.
Saw autumn's sunset glowing.
He sleeps, — still looking to the west.
Beneath the dark wood shadow,
As if he still would see the sun
Sink down on wave and meadow.
Bard, Sage, and Tribune! — in himself
All moods of mind contrasting, —
The tenderest wail of human woe.
The scorn-like lightning blasting ;
The pathos which from rival eyes
Unwilling tears could summon,
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst
Of hatred scarcely human !
Mirth, sparkling hke a diamond
shower.
From lips of life-long sadness ;
Clear picturings of majestic thought
Upon a ground of madness ;
And over all Romance and Song
A classic beauty throwing.
And laurelled Clio at his side
Her storied pages showing.
All parties feared him : each in turn
Beheld its schemes disjointed,
As right or left his fatal glance
And spectral finger pointed.
Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down
With trenchant wit unsparing,
And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand
The robe Pretence was wearing.
Too honest or too proud to feign
A love he never cherished.
Beyond Virginia's border line
His patriotism perished.
While others hailed in distant skies
Our eagle's dusky pinion.
He only saw the mountain bird
Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!
Still through each change of fortune
strange.
Racked nerve, and brain all burning.
His loving faith in Mother-land
Knew never shade of turning;
By Britain's lakes, by Neva's wave,
Whatever sky was o'er him.
He heard her rivers' rushing sound,
Her blue peaks rose before him.
He held his slaves, yet made withal
No false and vain pretences,
134
MISCELLANEOUS.
Nor paid a lying priest to seek
For Scriptural defences.
His harshest words of proud rebuke,
His bitterest taunt and scorning,
Fell fire-like on the Northern brow
That bent to him in fawning.
He held his slaves ; yet kept the while
His reverence for the Human ;
In the dark vassals of his will
He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God's outraged poor
His Roanoke valley entered ;
No trader in the souls of men
Across his threshold ventured.
And when the old and wearied man
Lay down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
His brother-man stood weeping,
His latest thought, his latest breath,
To Freedom's duty giving,
With failing tongue and trembling
hand
The dying blest the living.
O, never bore his ancient State
A truer son or braver!
None trampling with a calmer scorn
On foreign hate or favor.
He knew her faults, yet never stooped
His proud and manly feeling
To poor excuses of the wrong
Or meanness of concealing.
But none beheld with clearer eye
The plague-spot o'er her spreading.
None heard more sure the steps of
Doom
Along her future treading.
For her as for himself he spake.
When, his gaunt frame upbracing.
He traced \vith dying hand "Re-
morse!"
And perished in the tracing.
As from the grave where Henry sleeps.
From Vernon's weeping willow.
And from the grassy pall which hides
The Sage of Monticello,
So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone
Of Randolph's lowly dwelling,
Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves
A warning voice is swelling!
And hark ! from tliy deserted fields
Are sadder warnings spoken,
From quenched hearths, where thy
exiled sons
Their household gods have broken.
The curse is on thee, — wolves for men,
And briers for corn-sheaves giving!
O, more than all thy dead renown
Were now one hero livino^!
DEMOCRACY.
All things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them. —
Matthew vii. 12.
Bearer of Freedom's holy light.
Breaker of Slavery's chain and rod,
The foe of all which pains the sight.
Or wounds the generous ear of God!
Beautiful yet thy temples rise.
Though there profaning gifts are
thrown ;
And fires unkindled of the skies
Are glaring round thy altar-stone.
Still sacred, — though thy name be
breathed
By those whose hearts thy truth
deride ;
And garlands, plucked fi-om thee, are
wreathed
Around the haughty brows of Pride.
O, ideal of my boyhood's time !
The faith in which my f^ither stood.
Even when the sons of Lust and Crime
Had stained thy peaceful courts with
blood!
Still to those courts my footsteps turn.
For through the mists which darken
there,
TO RONGE.
135
1 see the flame of Freedom burn, —
The Kebla of the patriot's prayer!
The generous feeHng, pure and warm,
Which owns the rights of all di-
vine,—
The pitying heart, — the helping
arm, —
The prompt self-sacrifice, — are
thine.
Beneath thy broad, impartial eye,
How fade the lines of caste and birth !
How equal in their suffering lie
The groaning multitudes of earth !
Still to a stricken brother true.
Whatever clime hath nurtured him ;
As stooped to heal the wounded Jew
The worshipper of Gerizim.
By misery unrepelled, unawed
By pomp or power, thou seest a Man
In prince or peasant, — slave or lord, —
Pale priest, or swarthy artisan.
Through all disguise, form, place, or
name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame.
Thou lookest on the 7/ian within.
0
On man, as man, retaining yet.
However debased, and soiled, and
dim.
The crown upon his forehead set, —
The immortal gift of God to him.
And there is reverence in thy look ;
For that frail form which mortals
wear
The Spirit of the Holiest took,
And veiled his perfect brightness
there.
Not from the shallow babbling fount
Of vain philosophy thou art ;
He who of old on Syria's mount
Thrilled, warmed, by turns, the lis-
tener's heart,
In holy words which cannot die,
In thoughts which angels leaned to
know.
Proclaimed thy message from on
high, —
Thy mission to a world of woe.
That voice's echo hath not died!
From the blue lake of Galilee,
And Tabor's lonely mountain-side,
It calls a struggling world to thee.
Thy name and watchword o'er this land
I hear in every breeze that stirs,
And round a thousand altars stand
Thy banded party worshippers.
Not to these altars of a day,
At party's call, my gift I bring;
But on thy olden shrine I lay
A freeman's dearest offering :
The voiceless utterance of his will, —
His pledge to Freedom and to Truth,
That manhood's heart remembers still
The homage of his generous youth.
Election Day, 1843.
TO RONGE.
Strike home, strong-hearted man!
Down to the root
Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.
T/iy work is to hew down. In God's
name then
Put nerve into thy task. Let other
men
Plant, as they may, that better tree
whose fruit
The wounded bosom of the Church
shall heal.
Be thou the image-breaker. Let thy
blows
Fall heavy as the Suabian's iron hand,
On crown or crosier, which shall inter-
pose
Between thee and the weal of Father-
land.
136
MISCELLANEOUS.
Leave creeds to closet idlers. First
of all,
Shake thou all German dream-land
with the fall
Of that accursed tree, whose evil trunk
Was spared of old by Erfurt's stalwart
monk.
Fight not with ghosts and shadows.
Let us hear
The snap of chain-links. Let our
gladdened ear
Catch the pale prisoner's welcome, as
the light
Follows thy axe-stroke, through his
cell of night.
Be faithful to both worlds ; nor think
to feed
Earth's starving millions with the
husks of creed.
Servant of Him whose mission high
and holy
Was to the wronged, the sorrowing,
and the lowly,
Thmst not his Eden promise from our
sphere,
Distant and dim beyond the blue sky's
span ;
Like him of Patmos, see it, now and
here, —
The New Jerusalem comes down to
man!
Be warned by Luther's error. Nor
like him,
When the roused Teuton dashes from
his limb
The rusted chain of ages, help to bind
His hands for whom thou claim'st the
freedom of the mind!
CHALKLEY HALL.
How bland and sweet the greeting of
this breeze
To him who flies
From crowded street and red wall's
weary gleam,
Till far behind him like a hideous
dream
The close dark city lies !
Here, while the market murmurs,
while men throng
The marble floor
Of Mammon's altar, from the crush
and din
Of the world's madness let me gather in
My better thoughts once more.
O, once again revive, while on my ear
The cry of Gain
And low hoarse hum of Traffic die
away,
Ye blessed memories of my early day
Like sere grass wet with rain ! —
Once more let God's green earth and
sunset air
Old feehngs waken :
Through weary years of toil and strife
and ill,
O, let me feel that my good angel still
Hath not his trust forsaken.
And well do time and place befit my
mood :
Beneath the arms
Of this embracing wood, a good man
made
His home, like Abraham resting in
the shade
Of Mamie's lonely palms.
Here, rich with autumn gifts of count-
less years.
The virgin soil
Turned from the share he guided, and
in rain
And summer sunshine throve the
fruits and grain
Which blessed his honest toil.
Here, from his voyages on the stormy
seas.
Weary and worn.
He came to meet his children and to
bless
The Giver of all good in thankfulness
And praise for his return.
TO J. P.
137
And here his neighbors gathered in to
.greet
Their friend again,
• Safe from the wave and the destroy-
ing gales,
Which reap untimely green Bermuda's
vales,
And vex the Carib main.
To hear the good man tell of simple
truth,
Sown in an hour
Of weakness in some far-off Indian
isle.
From the parched bosom of a barren
soil.
Raised up in life and power :
How at those gatherings in Barbadian
vales,
A tendering love
•Came o'er him, like the gentle rain
from heaven,
And words of fitness to his lips were
given.
And strength as from above :
How the sad captive listened to the
Word,
Until his chain
Grew lighter, and his wounded spirit
felt
The healing balm of consolation melt
Upon its life-long pain :
How the armed warrior sat him down
to hear
Of Peace and Truth,
And the proud ruler and his Creole
dame,
■ Jewelled and gorgeous in her beauty
came.
And fair and bright-eyed youth.
O, far away beneath New England's
sky.
Even when a boy,
Following my plough by Merrimack's
green shore,
His simple record I have pondered o'er
With deep and quiet joy.
And hence this scene, in sunset glory
warm, —
Its woods around.
Its still stream winding on in light and
shade,
Its soft, green meadows and its up-
land glade, —
To me is holy ground.
And dearer far than haunts where
Genius keeps
His vigils still ;
Than that where Avon's son of song
is laid.
Or Vaucluse hallowed by its Pe-
trarch's shade.
Or Virgil's laurelled hill.
To the gray walls of fallen Paraclete,
To Juliet's urn.
Fair Arno and Sorrento's^ orange-
grove.
Where Tasso sang, let young Ro-
mance and Love
Like brother pilgrims turn.
But- here a deeper and serener charm
To all is given ;
And blessed memories of the faithful
dead
O'er wood and vale and meadow-
stream have shed
The holy hues of Heaven!
TO J. P.
Not as a poor requital of the joy
With which my childhood heard
that lay of thine,
Which, like an echo of the song
divine
At Bethlehem breathed above the
Holy Boy,
Bore to my ear the Airs of Pales-
tine, —
Not to the poet, but the man I bring
138
MISCELLANEOUS.
In friendship's fearless trust my of-
fering :
How much it lacks I feel, and thou
wilt see,
Yet well I know that thou hast deemed
with me
Life all too earnest, and its time too
short
For dreamy ease and Fancy^s graceful
sport ;
And girded for thy constant strife
with wrong,
Like Nehemiah fighting while he
wrought
The broken walls of Zion, even thy
song
Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in
every thought !
THE CYPRESS-TREE OF
CEYLON.
[IBN Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman
traveller of the fourteenth century, speaks
of a cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally held
sacred by the natives, the leaves of which
were said to fall only at certain intervals,
and he who had the happiness to find and
eat one of them, was restored, at once, to
youth and vigor. The traveller saw several
venerable foGEES, or saints, sitting silent
and motionless under the tree, patiently
awaiting the falling of a leaf.]
They sat in silent watchfulness
The sacred cypress-tree about.
And, from beneath old wrinkled
brows
Their failing eyes looked out.
Gray Age and Sickness waiting there
Through weary night and lingering
day,—
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.
Unheeded in the boughs above
The song of Ceylon's birds was
sweet ;
Unseen of them the island fiowers
Bloomed brightly at their feet.
O'er them the tropic night-storm
swept,
The thunder crashed on rock and
hill;
The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed.
Yet there they waited still!
What was the world without to them?
The Moslem's sunset-call, — the
dance
Of Ceylon's maids, — the passing
gleam
Of battle-flag and lance?
They waited for that falling leaf
Of which the wandering J ogees
sing:
Which lends once more to wintry age
The greenness of its spring.
O, if these poor and blinded ones
In trustful patience w^ait to feel
O'er torpid pulse and failing limb
A youthful freshness steal ;
Shall w^e, who sit beneath that Tree
Whose healing leaves of life are
shed.
In answer to the breath of prayer,
Upon the waiting head ;
Not to restore our failing forms,
And build the spirit's broken shrine,
But, on the fainting soul to shed
A light and life divine ;
Shall we grow weary in our watch.
And murmur at the long delay?
Impatient of our Father's time
And his appointed way?
Or shall the stir of outward things
Allure and claim the Christian's eye.
When on the heathen watcher's ear
Their pow^erless murmurs die?
Alas ! a deeper test of faith
Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness
Of silent prayer may make.
TO
139
We gird us bravely to rebuke
Our. erring brother in the wrong, —
And in the ear of Pride and Power
Our warning voice is strong.
Easier to smite with Peter's sword
Than " watch one hour ' ■ in hum-
bling prayer.
Life's " great things,'' like the Syrian
lord,
Our hearts can do and dare.
But oh ! we shrink from Jordan's side,
From waters which alone can save ;
And murmur for Abana's banks
And Pharpar's brighter wave.
O Thou, who in the garden's shade
Didst wake thy weary ones again.
Who slumbered at that fearful hour
Forgetful of thy pain ;
Bend o'er us now^, as over them.
And set our sleep-bound spirits
free.
Nor leave us slumbering in the watch
Our souls should keep with Thee !
A DREAM OF SUMMER.
Bland as the morning breath of June
The southwest breezes play ;
And, through its haze, the winter
noon
Seems warm as summer's day.
The snow^-plumed Angel of the North
Has dropped his icy spear ;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.
The fox his hillside cell forsakes.
The muskrat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
^* Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free ;
'• Our winter voices proj^hesy
Of summer days to thee! ''
So. in those winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear
O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And how beneath tlie winter's snow
Lie germs of summer flowers!
The Night is mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay
The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams
foil ;'
For God, who loveth all his w^orks,
Has left his Hope with all!
\th I si 7?ioniJi^ 1847.
TO ,
W'lTH A COPY OF
JOURNAL.
woolman's
" Get the writings of John Woolman by
heart." — Essays of Ella,
Maiden ! with the fair brown tresses
Shading o'er thy dreamy eye,
Floating on thy thoughtful forehead
Cloud wreaths of its sky.
Youthful years and maiden beauty,
Joy with them should still abide, —
.Instinct take the place of Duty,
Love,
Ever in the New rejoicing,
Kindly beckoning back the Old,
Turning, with the gift of Midas,
All things into gold.
And the passing shades of sadness
Wearing even a welcome guise.
As. when some bright lake lies open
To the sunnv skies.
140
MISCELLANEOUS.
Every wing of bird above it,
Every light cloud floating on,
Glitters like that flashing mirror
In the selfsame sun.
But upon thy youthful forehead
Something like a shadow lies ;
And a serious soul is looking
From thy earnest eyes.
With an early introversion,
Through the forms of outward
things.
Seeking for the subtle essence,
And the hidden springs.
Deeper than the gilded surface
Hath thy wakeful vision seen,
Farther than the narrow present
Have thy journeyings been.
Thou hast midst Life's empty noises
Heard the solemn steps of Time,
And the low mysterious voices
Of another clime.
All the mystery of Being
Hath upon thy spirit pressed, —
Thoughts which, like the Deluge
wanderer.
Find no place of rest :
That which mystic Plato pondered.
That which Zeno heard with awe.
And the star-rapt Zoroaster
In his night-watch saw.
From the doubt and darkness spring-
ing
Of the dim, uncertain Past,
Moving to the dark still shadows
O'er the Future cast.
Early hath Life's mighty question
Thrilled within thy heart of youth.
With a deep and strong beseeching :
What and avhere is Truth ?
Hollow creed and ceremonial.
Whence the ancient life hath fled,
Idle faith unknown to action.
Dull and cold and dead.
Oracles, whose wire-worked meanings,
Only wake a. quiet scorn, —
Not from these thy seeking spirit
Hath its answer drawn.
But, like some tired child at even,
On thy mother Nature's breast.
Thou, methinks, art vainly seeking
Truth, and peace, and rest.
O'er that mother's rugged features
Thou art throwing Fancy's veil.
Light and soft as woven moonbeams.
Beautiful and frail !
O'er the rough chart of Existence,
Rocks of sin and wastes of woe.
Soft airs breathe, and green' leaves
tremble.
And cool fountains flow.
And to thee an answer cometh
From the earth and from the sky,
And to thee the hills and waters
And the stars reply.
But a soul-suflicing answer
Hath no outward origin ;
More than Nature's many voices
May be heard within.
Even as the great Augustine
Questioned earth and sea and sky.
And the dusty tomes of learning
And old poesy.
But his earnest spirit needed
More than outward Nature taught, —
More than blest the poet's vision
Or the sage's thought.
Only in the gathered silence
Of a calm and waiting frame
Light and wisdom as from Heaven
To the seeker came.
LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.
141
Not to ease and aimless quiet
Doth that inward answer tend,
But to works of love and duty
As our beings end, —
Not to idle dreams and trances,
Length of face, and solemn tone,
But to Faith, in daily striving
And performance shown.
Earnest toil and strong endeavor
Of a spirit which within
Wrestles with familiar evil
And besetting sin ;
And without, with tireless vigor.
Steady heart, and weapon strong.
In the power of truth assailing
Every form of wrong.
Guided thus, how passing lovely
Is the track of Woolman's feet!
And his brief and simple record
How serenely sweet !
O'er life's humblest duties throwing
Light the earthling never knew.
Freshening all its dark waste places
As with Hermon's dew.
All which glows in Pascal's pages, —
All which sainted Guion sought,
Or the blue-eyed German Rahel
Half-unconscious taught : —
Beauty such as Goethe pictured,
Such as Shelley dreamed of, shed
Living warmth and starry brightness
Round that poor man's head.
Not a vain and cold ideal.
Not a poet's dream alone,
But a presence warm and real.
Seen and felt and known.
When the red right-hand of slaughter
Moulders with the steel it swung.
When the name of seer and poet
Dies on Memory's tongue,
All bright thoughts and pure shall
gather
Round that meek and suffering
one, —
Glorious, like the seer-seen angel
Standing in the sun !
Take the good man's book and ponder
What its pages say to thee, —
Blessed as the hand of healing
May its lesson be.
If it only serves to strengthen
Yearnings for a higher good,
For the fount of living waters
And diviner food ;
If the pride of human reason
Feels its meek and still rebuke,
Quailing like the eye of Peter
From the Just One's look! —
If with readier ear thou heedest
What the Inward Teacher saith,
Listening with a willing spirit
And a childlike faith, —
Thou mayst live to bless the giver.
Who, himiself but frail and weak.
Would at least the highest welfare
Of another seek ;
And his gift, though poor and lowly
It may seem to other eyes.
Yet may prove an angel holy
In a pilgrim's guise.
LEGGETT'S MONUMENT.
" Ye build the tombs of the prophets."
Holy Writ.
Yes, — pile the marble o'er him! It
is well
That ye who mocked him in his long
stern strife,
And planted in the pathway of his
Hfe
The ploughshares of your hatred hot
from hell.
142
SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS.
Who clamored down the bold re-
The angel utterance of an upright
former when
mind.
He pleaded for his captive fellow-
Well it is now that o'er his grave ye
men,
raise
Who spurned him in the market-place,
The stony tribute of your tardy
and sought
praise.
Within thy walls, St. Tammany, to
For not alone that. pile shall tell to
bind
Fame
In party chains the free and honest
Of the brave heart beneath, but of the
thought,
builders' shame!
SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS, 1850.
DEDICATION.
I WOULD the gift I offer here
Might graces from thy favor take.
And, seen through Friendship's
atmosphere,
On softened lines and coloring,
wear
The unaccustomed light of beauty, for
thy sake.
Few leaves of Fancy's spring re-
main :
But what I have I give to thee, —
The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's
plain,
And paler flowers, the latter rain
Calls from the westering slope of life's
autumnal lea.
Above the fallen groves of green.
Where youth's enchanted forest
stood.
Dry root and mossed trunk be-
tween,
A sober after-growth is seen.
As springs the pine where falls the
gay-leafed maple wood!
Yet birds will sing, and breezes
play
Their leaf-harps in the sombre
tree;
And through the bleak and wintry
day
It keeps its steady green alway, —
So, even my after-thoughts may have
a charm for thee.
Art's perfect forms no moral need.
And beauty is its own excuse ;
But for the dull and flowerless weed
Some healing virtue still mustjDlead,
And the rough ore must find its honors
in its use.
So haply these, my simple lays
Of homely toil, may serve to
show
The orchard bloom and tasselled
maize
That skirt and gladden duty's ways.
The unsung beauty hid life's common
things below.
Haply from them the toiler, bent
Above his forge or plough, may
gain
A manlier spirit of content.
And feel that life is wisest spent
Where the strong working hand makes
strong the working brain.
The doom which to the guilty pair
Without the walls of Eden came.
Transforming: sinless ease to care
THE SHIP-BUILDERS.
143
And rugged toil, no more shall bear
The burden of old crime, or mark of
primal shame.
A blessing now, — a curse no more ;
Since He, whose name we breathe
with awe,
The coarse mechanicvesture wore, —
A poor man toiling with the poor.
In labor, as in prayer, fulfilling the
same law.
THE SHIP-BUILDERS.
The sky is ruddy in the east,
The earth is gray below.
And, spectral in the river-mist.
The ship's white timbers show.
Then let the sounds of measured
stroke
And grating saw begin ;
The broad-axe to the gnarled oak,
The mallet to the pin !
Hark! — roars the bellows, blast on
blast,
The sooty smithy jars.
And fire-sparks, rising far and fast,
Are fading with the stars.
All day for us the smith shall stand
Beside that flashing forge ;
All day for us his heavy hand
The groaning anvil scourge.
From far-off hills, the panting team
For us is toiling near ;
For us the raftsmen down the stream
Their island barges steer.
Rings out for us the axe-man's stroke
In forests old and still, —
For us the century-circled oak
Falls crashing down his hill.
Up ! — up ! — in nobler toil than ours
No craftsmen bear a part :
We make of Nature's giant powers
The slaves of human Art.
Lay rib to rib and beam to beam,
And drive the treenails free ;
Nor faithless joint nor yawning seam
Shall tempt the searching sea!
Where'er the keel of our good ship
The sea's rough field shall plough, —
Where'er her tossing spars shall drip
With salt-spray caught below, —
That ship must heed her master^s
beck.
Her helm obey his hand.
And seamen tread her reeling deck
As if they trod the land.
Her oaken ribs the vulture-beak
Of Northern ice may peel ;
The sunken rock and coral peak
May grate along her keel ;
And know we well the painted shell
We give to wind and wave,
Must float, the sailor's citadel,
Or sink, the sailor's grave!
Ho ! — strike away the bars and
blocks,
And set the good ship free!
Why lingers on these dusty rocks
The young bride of the sea?
Look! how she moves adown the
grooves.
In graceful beauty now!
Piow lowly on the breast she loves
Sinks down her virgin prow !
God bless her! wdieresoe'er the breeze
Her snowy wing shall tan,
Aside the frozen Hebrides,
Or sultry Hindostan!
Where'er, in mart or on the main.
With peaceful flag unfurled.
She helps to wind the silken chain
Of commerce round the world !
Speed on the ship! — But let her
bear
No merchandise of sin.
No groaning cargo of despair
Her roomy hold within ;
No Lethean drug for Eastern lands,
Nor poison-draught for ours ;
144
SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS.
But honest fruits of toiling hands
And Nature^s sun and showers.
Be hers the Prairie's golden grain,
The Desert's golden sand,
The clustered fruits of sunny Spain,
The spice of Morning-land!
Her pathway on the open main
May blessings follow free,
And glad hearts welcome back again
Her white sails from the sea!
THE SHOEMAKERS.
Ho! workers of the old time styled
The Gentle Craft of Leather !
Young brothers of the ancient guild.
Stand forth once more together!
Call out again your long array,
In the olden merry manner!
Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day,
Fling out your blazoned banner!
Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone
How falls the polished hammer!
Rap, rap! the measured sound has
grown
A quick and merry clamor.
Now shape the sole! now deftly curl
The glossy vamp around it.
And bless the while the bright-eyed
girl
Whose gentle fingers bound it!
For you, along the Spanish main
A hundred keels are ploughing ;
For you, the Indian on the plain
His lasso-coil is throwing ;
For you, deep glens with hemlock
dark
The woodman's fire is lighting ;
For you, upon the oak's gray bark.
The woodman's axe is smiting.
For you, from Carolina's pine
The rosin-gum is stealing ;
For you, the dark-eyed Florentine
For you, the dizzy goatherd roams
His rugged Alpine ledges ;
For you, round all her shepherd
homes,
Bloom England's thorny hedges.
The foremost still, by day or night,
On moated mound or heather,
Where'er the need of trampled right
Brought toiling men together ;
Where the free burghers from the
wall
Defied the mail-clad master.
Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-
call.
No craftsmen rallied faster.
Let foplings sneer, let fools deride, —
Ye heed no idle scorner ;
Free hands and hearts are still your
pride.
And duty done, your honor.
Ye dare to trust, for honest fame.
The jury Time empanels.
And leave to truth each noble name
Which glorifies your annals.
Thy songs, Han Sachs, are living yet,
In strong and hearty German ;
And Bloomfield's lay, and Giffbrd's
wit.
And patriot fame of Sherman ;
Still from his book, a mystic seer,
The soul of Behmen teaches.
And England's priestcraft shakes to
hear
Of Fox's leathern breeches.
The foot is yours ; where'er it falls.
It treads your well-wrought leather,
On earthern floor, in marble halls.
On carpet, or on heather.
Still there the sw^eetest charm is found
Of matron grace or vestal's.
As Hebe's foot bore nectar round
Among the old celestials !
Rap, rap ! — your stout and bluff bro-
gan.
With footsteps slow and weary,
THE DROVERS.
145
May wander where the sky's blue span
Shuts down upon the prairie.
On Beauty's foot, your slippers glance,
By Saratoga's fountains,
Or twinkle down the summer dance
Beneath the Crystal Mountains !
The red brick to the mason's hand.
The brow^n earth to the tiller's.
The shoe in yours shall wealth com-
mand.
Like fairy Cinderella's!
As they who shunned the household
maid
Beheld the crown upon her.
So all shall see your toil repaid
With hearth and home and honor.
Then let the toast be freely quaffed,
In water cool and brimming, —
'^ All honor to the good old Craft,
Its merry men and w^omen ! "
Call out again your long array,
In the old time's pleasant manner ;
Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day,
Flino: out his blazoned banner!
THE DROVERS.
Through heat and cold, and shower
and sun,
Still onward cheerly driving!
There's life alone in duty done,
And rest alone in striving.
But see! the day is closing cool,
The woods are dim before us ;
The white fog of the w ayside pool
Is creeping slowly o'er us.
The night is falling, comrades mine.
Our foot-sore beasts are weary.
And through yon elms the tavern sign
Looks out upon us cheery.
The landlord beckons from his door,
His beechen fire is glowing ;
These ample barns, with feed in store.
Are filled to overflowinor.
From many a valley frowned across
By brows of rugged mountains ;
From hillsides where, through spongy
moss,
Gush out the river fountains ;
From quiet farm-fields, green and low.
And bright with blooming clover;
From vales of corn the wandering
crow
No richer hovers over ;
Day after day our way has been,
O'er many a hill and hollow ;
By lake and stream, by wood and glen,
Our stately drove we follow.
Through dust-clouds rising thick and
dun,
As smoke of battle o'er us.
Their white horns glisten in the sun,
Like plumes and crests before us.
We see them slowly climb the hill.
As slow behind it sinking ;
Or, thronging close, from roadside rill,
Or sunny lakelet, drinking.
Now crowding in the narrow road.
In thick and strugglir^g masses.
They glare upon the teamster's load.
Or rattling coach that passes.
Anon, with toss of horn and tail,
And paw of hoof, and bellow,
They leap some farmer's broken pale.
O'er meadow-close or fallow.
Forth comes the startled goodman ;
forth
Wife, children, house-dog, sally,
Till once more on their dusty path
The baffled truants rally.
We drive no starvelings, scraggy
grown.
Loose-legged, and ribbed and bony.
Like those who grind their noses
down
On pastures bare and stony, —
Lank oxen, rough as Indian dogs.
And cows too lean for shadows,
Disputing feebly with the frogs
The crop of saw-grass meadows !
146
SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS.
In our good drove, so sleek and fair,
No bones of leanness rattle ;
No tottering hide-bound ghosts are
there,
Or Pharaoh's evil cattle.
Each stately beeve bespeaks the hand
That fed him unrepining ;
The fatness of a goodly land
In each dun hide is shining.
We Ve sought them where, in warmest
nooks.
The freshest feed is growing,
By sweetest springs and clearest
brooks
Through honeysuckle flowing ;
Wherever hillsides, sloping south.
Are bright with early grasses.
Or, tracking green the lowland's
drouth,
The mountain streamlet passes.
But now the day is closing cool.
The woods are dim before us,
The whiteJog of the wayside pool
Is creeping^ slowly o'er us.
The cricket to the frog's bassoon
His shrillest time is keeping;
The sickle of yon setting moon
The meadow-mist is reaping.
The night is falling, comrades mine.
Our footsore beasts are weary.
And through yon elms the tavern sign
Looks out upon us cheery.
To-morrow, eastward with our charge
We '11 go to meet the dawning.
Ere yet the pines of Kearsarge
Have seen the sun of morning.
When snow-flakes o'er the frozen
earth,
Instead of birds, are flitting;
When children throng the glowing
hearth.
And quiet wives are knitting ;
While in the fire-light strong and
clear
Young eyes of pleasure glisten,
To tales of all we see and hear
The ears of home shall listen.
By many a Northern lake and hill.
From many a mountain pasture,
Shall Fancy play the Drover still.
And speed the long night faster.
Then let us on, through shower and
sun,
And heat and cold, be driving ;
There 's life alone in duty done,
And rest alone in strivin^^.
THE FISHERMEN.
Hurrah ! the seaward breezes
Sweep down the bay amain ;
Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
Run up the sail again !
Leave to the lubber landsmen
The rail-car and the steed ;
The stars of heaven shall guide us.
The breath of heaven shall speed.
From the hill-top looks the steeple,
And the lighthouse from the sand ;
And the scattered pines are waving
Their farew^ell from the land.
One glance, my lads, behind us,
For the homes we leave one sigh.
Ere w^e take the change and chances
Of the ocean and the sky.
Now, brothers, for the icebergs
Of frozen Labrador,
Floating spectral in the moonshine,
Along the low. black shore!
Where like snow the gannefs feathers
On Brador's rocks are shed.
And the noisy murr are flying.
Like black scuds, overhead ;
And the sharp reef lurks below.
And the white squall smites in summer.
And the autumn tempests blow ;
Where, through gray and rolling vapor.
From evening unto morn,
THE HUSKERS.
H7
A thousand boats are hailing,
Horn answering unto horn.
Hurrah! for the Red Island,
With the white cross on its crown!
Hurrah! for Meccatina,
And its mountains bare and brown !
Where the Caribou's tall antlers
O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss,
And the footstep of the Mickmack
Has no sound upon the moss.
There we '11 drop our lines, and gather
Old Ocean's treasures in,
Where'er the mottled mackerel
Turns up a steel-dark fin.
The sea 's our field of harvest.
Its scaly tribes our grain ;
We '11 reap the teeming waters
As at home they reap the plain !
Our wet hands spread the carpet.
And light the hearth of home ;
From our fish, as in the old time.
The silver coin shall come.
A«^ the demon fled the chamber
Where the fish of Tobit lay.
So ours from all our dweUings
Shall frighten Want away.
Though the mist upon our jackets
In the bitter air congeals
And our lines wind stiff and slowly
From oiT the frozen reels ;
Though the fog be dark around us,
And the storm blow high and
loud.
We will whistle down the wild
wind.
And laugh beneath the cloud!
In the darkness as in daylight,
On the water as on land,
God's eye is looking on us.
And beneath us is his hand!
Death will find us soon or later,
On the deck or in the cot ;
And we cannot meet him better
Than in working out our lot.
Hurrah ! — hurrah ! — the west-wind
Comes freshening down the bay.
The rising sails are filling, —
Give way, my lads, give way !
Leave the coward landsman cling-
ing
To the dull earth, like a weed, —
The stars of heaven shall guide us,
The breath of heaven shall speed!
THE HUSKERS.
It was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain
Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;
The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay
With the hues of summers rainbow, or the meadow-fiowers of May.
Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red.
At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped ;
Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued.
On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.
And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the ni^^ht.
He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light ;
Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill ;
And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.
SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS.
And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of that sky,
Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laughed, they knew not why ;
And school-girls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks,
Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks.
From spire and barn, looked westerly the patient weathercocks ;
But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks.
No sound was in the woodlands, save the squirrel's dropping shell.
And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell.
The summer grains were harvested ; the stubble-fields lay dry,
Where June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale green waves of rye ;
But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys fringed with wood,
Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy corn crop stood.
Bent low^, by autumn's wind and rain, through husks that, dry and sere,
Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear ;
Beneath, the turnip lay concealed, in many a verdant fold.
And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold.
There wrought the busy harvesters ; and many a creaking wain
Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain ;
Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down, at last,
And like a merry guest's farewell, the day in brightness passed.
And lo ! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond,
Flamed the red radiance of a sky, set all afire beyond.
Slowly o'er the eastern sea-blufl"s a milder glory shone.
And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!
As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away.
And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay ;
From many a brown old farm-house, and hamlet without name.
Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry buskers came.
Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow,
Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below;
The growing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before.
And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er.
Half hidden in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart,
Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart ;
While, up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade.
At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played.
Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair.
Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair.
The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue,
To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a husking-ballad sung.
THE LUMBERMEN.
149
. THE CORN-SONG.
Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn !
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn !
Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine ;
We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.
Through vales of grass and meads of
flowers.
Our ploughs their furrows made.
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.
We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain,
T^eneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting
grain
The robber crows away.
All through the long, bright days of
June
Its leaves grew green and fair.
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest-time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.
There, richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift.
And knead its meal of gold.
Let vapid idlers loll in silk
Around their costly board ;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk.
By homespun beauty poured!
Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls.
Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our farmer girls!
Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn !
Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly :
But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod ;
Still let us, for his golden corn.
Send up our thanks to God!
THE LUMBERMEN.
Wildly round our woodland quarters.
Sad-voiced Autumn grieves ;
Thickly down these swelling waters
Float his fallen leaves.
Through the tall and naked timber,
Column-like and old.
Gleam the sunsets of November,
From their skies of gold.
O'er us, to the southland heading.
Screams the gray wild-goose ;
On the night-frost sounds the treading
Of the brindled moose.
Noiseless creeping, while we 're sleep-
ing,
Frost his task-work plies ;
Soon, his icy bridges heaping,
Shall our log-piles rise.
When, with sounds of smothered thun-
der.
On some night of rain.
Lake and river break asunder
Winter's weakened chain,
Down the wild March flood shall bear
them
To the saw-mill's wheel,
ISO
SONGS OF LABOR AND OTHER POEMS.
Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear
them
With his teeth of steel.
Be it starlight, be it moonlight,
In these vales below,
When the earliest beams of sunlight
Strealc the mountain's snow,
Crisps the hoar-frost, keen and early,
To our hurrying feet,
And the forest echoes clearly
All our blows repeat.
Where the crystal Ambijejis
Stretches broad and clear.
And Millnoket\s pine-black ridges
Hide the browsing deer:
Where, through lakes and wide mo-
rasses,
Or tlirough rocky walls,
Swift and strong, Penobscot passes
White with foamy falls ;
Where, through clouds, are glimpses
given
Of Katahdin's sides, —
Rock and forest piled to heaven,
Torn and ploughed by slides!
Far below, the Indian trapping,
In the sunshine warm ;
Far above, the snow-cloud wrapping
Half the peak in storm !
Where are mossy carpets better
Than the Persian weaves.
And than Eastern perfumes sweeter
Seem the fading leaves ;
And a music wild and solemn.
From the pine-tree's height.
Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
On the wind of night ;
Make we here our camp of winter ;
And, through sleet and snow.
Pitchy knot and beech en splinter
On our hearth shall glow.
Here, with mirth to lighten duty.
We shall lack alone
Woman's smile and girlhood's beauty.
Childhood's lisping tone.
But their hearth is brighter burning
For our toil to-day ;
And the welcome of returning
Shall our loss repay,
When, like seamen from the waters.
From the woods we come.
Greeting sisters, wives, and daughters.
Angels of our home !
Not for us the measured ringing
From the village spire,
Not for us the Sabbath singing
Of the sweet-voiced choir :
Ours the old, majestic temple.
Where God's brightness shines
Down the dome so grand and ample,
Propped by lofty pines !
Through each branch-enwoven sky-
light.
Speaks He in the breeze.
As of old beneath the twilight
Of lost Eden's trees !
For his ear, the inward feeling
Needs no outward tongue ;
He can see the spirit kneeling
While the axe is swuno^.
Heeding truth alone, and turning
From the false and dim.
Lamp of toil or altar burning
Are alike to Him.
Strike, then, comrades ! — Trade is
waiting
On our rugged toil ;
Far ships waiting for the freighting
Of our woodland spoil !
Ships, whose traffic links these high-
lands,
Bleak and cold, of ours.
With the citron-planted islands
Of a clime of flowers ;
To our frosts the tribute bringing
Of eternal heats ;
In our lap of winter flinging
Tropic fruits and sweets.
THE ANGELS OF CUENA VISTA.
151
Cheerly, on the axe of labor,
Let the sunbeams dance,
Better' than the flash of sabre
Or the gleam of lance!
Strike ! — With every blow is given
Freer sun and sky,
And the long-hid earth to heaven
Looks, with wondering eye!
Loud behind us grow the murmurs
Of the age to come ;
Clang of smiths, and tread of farmers,
Bearing harvest home!
Here her virgin lap with treasures
Shall the green earth fill ;
Waving wheat and golden maize-ears
Crown each beechen hill.
Keep who will the city's alleys.
Take the smooth-shorn plain, —
Give to us the cedar valleys.
Rocks and hills of Maine!
In our North-land, wild and woody,
Let us still have part :
Rugged nurse and mother sturdy,
Hold us to thy heart!
O, our free hearts beat the warmer
For thy breath of snow ;
And our tread is all the firmer
For thy rocks below.
Freedom, hand in hand with labor,
Walketh strong and brave ;
On the forehead of his neighbor
No man writeth Slave!
Lo, the day breaks! old Katahdin's
Pine-trees show its fires.
While from these dim forest gardens
Rise their blackened spires.
Up, my comrades! up and doing!
Manhood's rugged play
Still renewing, bravely hewing
Through the world our way!
MISCELLANEOUS.
THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.
Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away.
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.
"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls ;
Blood is flowing, men are dying ; God have mercy on their souls!"
Who is losing? who is winning? — '' Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain."
Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look once more.
^' Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before,
Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse,
Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course."
Look forth once more, Ximena! " Ah ! the smoke has rolled away ;
And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray.
Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon wheels ;
There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.
152 MISCELLANEOUS.
^^Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance!
Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance!
Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and foot together fall ;
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."
Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on :
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who has won?
^' Alas! alas! I know not ; friend and foe together fall.
O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all!
^' Lo! the wind the smoke is Hfting: Blessed Mother, save my brain!
I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain.
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now they fall, and strive to rise ;
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes !
^' O my heart's love! O my dear one! lay thy poor head on my knee :
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? canst thou see?
O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal, look once more
On the blessed cross before thee! Mercy! mercy! all is o'er!"
Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy dear one down to rest ;
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast ;
Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said :
To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.
Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay.
Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away;
But, as tenderly before him, the lorn Ximena knelt.
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.
With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head ;
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead ;
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggHng breath of pain,
And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.
Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and faintly smiled :
Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child?
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied ;
With her kiss upon his forehead, ^^ Mother! " murmured he, and died!
" A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth.
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, in the North ! "
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead.
Look forth once more, Ximena! " Like a cloud before the wind
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind ;
Ah! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the dust the wounded strive ;
Hide your faces, holy angels! oh thou Christ of God, forgive!"
BARCLAY OF URY.
153
Sink, O Night, among thy mountains! let the cool, gray shadows fall ;
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all!
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled,
In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.
But the noble Mexic w^omen still their holy task pursued.
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint and lacking food ;
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they hung.
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.
Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours ;
Upward, through it blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers ;
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer,
And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!
FORGIVENESS.
My heart was heavy, for its trust had
been
Abused, its kindness answered with
foul wrong ;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-
men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled
among
The green mounds of the village bur-
ial-place ;
Where, pondering how all human
love and hate
Und one sad level ; and how, soon
or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with
meekened face.
And cold hands folded over a still
heart,
Pass the green threshold of our com-
mon grave.
Whither all footsteps tend, whence
none depart.
Awed for myself, and pitying my
race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty
wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trem-
bling I forgave!
BARCLAY OF URY.
Up the streets of Aberdeen,
By the kirk and college green,
Rode the Laird of Ury ;
Close behind him, close beside,
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed.
Pressed the mob in fury.
Flouted him the drunken churl,
Jeered at him the serving-girl.
Prompt to please her master;
And the begging carl in, late
Fed and clothed at Ury's gate.
Cursed him as he passed her.
Yet, with calm and stately mien,
Up the streets of Aberdeen
Came he slowly riding ;
And, to all he saw and heard.
Answering not with bitter word,
Turning not for chiding.
Came a troop with broadswords
swinging.
Bits and bridles sharply ringing,
Loose and free and froward ;
Quoth the foremost, " Ride him
down !
154
IMISCELLANEOUS.
Push him! prick him! tlirougb the
town
Drive the Quaker coward !''
But from out the thickening crowd
Cried a sudden voice and loud :
^'BarcLay! Ho! a Barclay!"
And the old man at his side
Saw a comrade, battle tried,
Scarred and sun-burned darkly ;
Who with ready weapon bare.
Fronting to the troopers there,
Cried aloud : '' God save us,
Call ye coward him who stood
Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood.
With the brave Gustavus ? "
" Nay, I do not need thy sword.
Comrade mine,'' said Ury\s lord ;
'' Put it up, I pray thee :
Passive to his holy will,
Trust 1 in my Master still,
Even though he slay me.
" Pledges of thy love and faith.
Proved on many a field of death,
Not by me are needed."
Marvelled much that henchman bold,
That his laird, so stout of old,
Now so meekly pleaded.
"Woe 's the day! " he sadly said,
With a slowly-shaking head,
And a look of pity ;
'^Ury\s honest lord reviled.
Mock of knave and sport of child,
In his own good city!
" Speak the word, and, master mine.
As we charged on Tilly's line,
And his Walloon lancers,
Smiting through their midst we *11
teach
Civil look and decent speech
To these boyish prancers ! "
" Marvel not, mine ancient friend.
Like l:)eginning, like the end "' :
Quoth the Laird of Ury,
" Is the sinful servant more
Than his gracious Lord who bore
Bonds and stripes in Jewry?
" Give me joy that in his name
I can bear, with patient frame,
All these vain ones offer ;
While for them He suffereth long,
Shall I answer wrong with wrong,
Scoffing with the scoffer?
" Happier I, with loss of all.
Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall.
With few friends to greet me.
Than when reeve and squire were
seen.
Riding out from Aberdeen,
With bared heads to meet me.
" When each goodwife, o'er and o'er,
Blessed me as I passed her door ;
And the snooded daughter.
Through her casement glancing
down,
Smiled on him who bore renown
From red fields of slaughter.
" Hard to feel the stranger's scoff,
Hard the old friend's falling off,
Hard to learn forgiving :
But the Lord his own rewards.
And his love with theirs accords.
Warm and fresh and living.
"Through this dark and stormy
night
Faith beholds a feeble light
Up the blackness streaking ;
Knowing God's own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
For the full day-breaking! "
So the Laird of Ury said.
Turning slow his horse's head
Towards the Tolbooth prison.
Where, through iron grates, he heard
Poor disciples of the Word
Preach of Christ arisen !
WHAT THE VOICE SAID.
155
Not ill vain, Confessor old,
Unto us the tale is told
Of thy day of trial ;
Every age on him, who strays
From its broad and beaten ways,
Pours its sevenfold vial.
Happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear,
O'er the rabble's laughter ;
And, while Hatred's fagots burn.
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.
Knowing this, that never yet
Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow ;
After hands shall sow the seed.
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.
Thus, with somew^hat of the Seer,
Must the moral pioneer
From the Future borrow ;
Clothe the waste with dreams of
grain.
And, on midnight's sky of rain,
Paint the golden morrow !
WHAT THE VOICE SAID.
Maddened by Earth's wrong and
evil,
''Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,
" From thy right hand, clothed with
thunder.
Shake the bolted fire!
'' Love is lost, and Faith is dying ;
With the brute the man is sold ;
And the dropping blood of labor
Hardens into gold.
'" Here the dying wail of Famine,
There the battle's groan of pain ;
And, in silence, smooth-face Mammon
Reaping men like grain. —
'' ' Where is God, that we should fear
Him?'
Thus the earth-]j>orn Titans say ;
"God! if thou art Jiving, hear us!'
Thus the weak ones pray."
" Thou, the patient Heaven upbraid-
Spake a solemn Voice within ;
" W^eary of our Lord's forbearance,
Art thou free from sin?
" Fearless brow to Him uplifting.
Canst thou for his thunders call^
Knowing that to guilt's attraction
Evermore they fall?
" Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time?
Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.
" Couldst thou boast, O child of weak-
ness !
O'er the sons of wrong and strife.
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life?
" Thou hast seen two streamlets gush-
ing
From one fountain, clear and free,
But by widely varying channels
Searching for the sea.
'' Glideth one through greenest valleys.
Kissing them with lips still sweet ;
One, mad roaring down the mountains,
Stagnates at their feet.
'' Is it choice whereby the Parsee
Kneels before his mother's fire?
In his black tent did the Tartar
Choose his wandering sire?
" He alone, whose hand is bounding
Human power and human will,
Looking through each soul's surround-
ing.
Knows its sfood or ill.
156
MISCELLANEOUS.
" For thyself, while wrong and sorrow
Make to thee their strong appeal,
Coward wert thou not to utter
What the heart must feel.
'* Earnest words must needs be spoken
When the warm heart bleeds or
burns
With its scorn of wrong, or pity
For the wronged, by turns.
" But, by all thy nature^s weakness,
Hidden faults and follies known, .
Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own.
" Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty
To thy lips her trumpet set.
But with harsher blasts shall mingle
Wailings of regret.''
Cease not, Voice of holy speaking,
Teacher sent of God, be near.
Whispering through the day's cool
silence.
Let my spirit hear!
So, when thoughts of evil-doers
Waken scorn, or hatred move,
Shall a mournful fellow-feeling
Temper all with love.
TO DELAWARE.
[Written during the discussion in the
Legislature of that State, in the winter
of "1846-47, of a bill for the abolition of
slavery.]
Thrice welcome to thy sisters of the
East,
To the strong tillers of a rugged
home.
With spray-wet locks to Northern
winds released.
And hardy feet o'erswept by ocean's
foam ;
And to the young nymphs of the golden
West,
Whose harvest mantles, fringed with
prairie bloom,
Trail in the sunset, — O redeemed
and blest.
To the warm welcome of thy sisters
come !
Broad Pennsylvania, down her sail-
white bay
Shall give thee joy, and Jersey from
her plains,
And the great lakes, where echo, free
alway.
Moaned never shoreward with the
clank of chains,
Shall weave new sun-bows in their
tossing spray.
And all their waves keep grateful holi-
day.
And, smihng on thee through her
mountain rains,
Vermont shall bless thee ; and the
Granite peaks,
And vast Katahdin o'er his woods,
shall wear
Their snow-crowns brighter in the
cold keen air ;
And Massachusetts, with her rugged
cheeks
Overrun with grateful tears, shall turn
to thee.
When, at thy bidding, the electric
wire
Shall tremble northward with its
words of fire ;
Glory and praise to God! another
State is free!
WORSHIP.
" Pure religion, and undefiled, before
God and the Father is this : To visit the
widows and the fatherless in their affliction,
and to keep himself unspotted from the
world." — James i. 27.
The Pagan's myths through marble
lips are spoken.
And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit
and moan
WORSHIP.
157
Round fane and altar overthrown and
broken,
O'er tree-grown barrow and gray
ring of stone.
Blind Faith had martyrs in those old
high places,
The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's
wood,
h motl
embraces.
Bone of their bone, and blood of
their own blood.
Red altars, kindling through that night
of error.
Smoked with warm blood beneath the
cruel eye
Of lawless Power and sanguinary
Terror,
Throned on the circle of a pitiless
sky;
Beneath whose baleful shadow, over-
casting
All heaven above, and blighting
earth below,
The scourge grew red, the lip grew
pale with fasting,
And man's oblation was his fear and
Then through great temples swelled
the dismal moaning
Of dirge-like music and sepulchral
prayer ;
Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols
droning,
Swung their white censers in the
burdened air :
As if the pomp of rituals, and the
savor
Of gums and spices could the Un-
seen One please ;
As if his ear could bend, with childish
favor,
To the poor flattery of the organ
keys!
Feet red from war-fields trod the
church aisles holy.
With trembling reverence : and the
oppressor there,
Kneeling before his priest, abased and
lowly.
Crushed human hearts beneath his
knee of prayer.
Not such the service the benignant
Father
Requireth at his earthly children's
hands :
Not the poor offering of vain rites, but
rather
The simple duty man from man
demands.
For Earth he asks it : the full joy of
Heaven
Knoweth no change of weaning or
increase ;
The great heart of the Infinite beats
even.
Untroubled flows the river of his
peace.
He asks no taper lights, on high sur-
rounding
The priestly altar and the saintly
grave.
No dolorous chant nor organ music
sounding,
Nor incense clouding up the twi-
light nave.
For he whom Jesus loved hath truly
spoken :
The holier worship which he deigns
to bless
Restores the lost, and binds the spirit
broken,
And feeds the widow and the father-
less !
Types of our human weakness and
our sorrow !
Who lives unhaunted by his loved
ones dead?
158
MISCELLANEOUS.
Who, with vain longing, seeketh not
to borrow
From stranger eyes the home lights
which have lied?
O brother man! fold to thy heart thy
brother;
Where pity dwells, the peace of
God is there ;
To worship rightly is to love each
other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly
deed a prayer.
Follow with reverent steps the great
example
Of Him whose holy work was
'^ doing good" ;
So shall the wide earth seem our
feather's temple.
Each loving life a psalm of grati-
tude.
Then shall all shackles fall ; the
stormy clangor
Of wild war music o'er the earth
shall cease ;
Love shall tread out the baleful fire of
anger.
And in its ashes plant the tree of
peace !
THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.
The Brownie sits in the Scotchman's
room.
And eats his meat and drinks his
ale.
And beats the maid with her unused
broom,
And the lazy lout with his idle flail.
But he sweeps the floor and threshes
the corn,
And hies him away ere the break of
dawn.
The shade of Denmark fled from the
sun,
And the Cock lane ghost from the
barnloft clieer.
The fiend of Faust was a faithful
one,
Agrippa's demon wrought in fear,
And the devil of Martin Luther sat
By the stout monk's side in social
chat.
The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck
of him
Who seven times crossed the deep.
Twined closely each lean and with-
ered limb.
Like the nightmare in one's sleep.
But he drank of the wine, and Sin-
bad cast
The evil weight from his back at last.
But the demon that cometh day by
day
To my quiet room and fireside nook.
Where the casement light falls dim
and gray
On faded painting and ancient book,
Ls a sorrier one than any whose names
Are chronicled well by good King
James.
No bearer of burdens like Caliban,
No runner of errands like Ariel,
He comes in the shape of a fat old
man,
Without rap of knuckle or pull of
bell ;
And whence he comes, or whither he
goes,
I know as I do of the wind which
blows.
A stout old man with a greasy hat
Slouched heavily down to his dark,
red nose.
And two gray eyes enveloped in fat,
Looking through glasses with iron
bows.
Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who
can.
Guard well your doors from that old
man!
THE DEMON OF THE STUDY.
159
He comes with a careless '' How d' ye
db?"
And seats himself in my elbow-
chair ;
And my morning paper and pamphlet
new
Fall forthwith under his special
care,
And he wipes his glasses and clears
his throat,
And, button by button, unfolds his
coat.
And then he reads from paper and
book,
In a low and husky asthmatic tone.
With the stolid sameness of posture
and look
Of one who reads to himself alone ;
And hour after hour on my senses
come
That husky wheeze and that dolorous
hum.
The price of stocks, the auction
sales,
The poefs song and the lover's
glee,
The horrible murders, the seaboard
gales.
The marriage list, and the jcu cVe-
sprit^
All reach my ear in the selfsame
tone, —
I shudder at each, but the fiend reads
O, sweet as the lapse of water at
noon
O'er the mossy roots of some forest
tree.
The sigh of the wind in the woods of
June,
Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight
sea,
Or the low soft music, perchance,
which seems
To float through the slumbering
singer's dreams.
So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone.
Of her in whose features 1 some-
times look,
As I sit at eve by her side alone,
And we read by turns from the
selfsame book, —
Some tale perhaps of the olden time.
Some lover's romance or quaint old
rhyme.
Then when the story is one of woe, —
Some prisoner's plaint through his
dungeon-bar,
Her blue eye glistens with tears, and
low
Her voice sinks down like a moan
afar ;
And I seem to hear that prisoner's
wail,
And his face looks on me worn and
pale.
And when sli^ reads some merrier
song,
Her voice is glad as an April bird's.
And when the tale is of war and
wrong,
A trumpet's summons is in her
words.
And the rush of the hosts I seem to
hear.
And see the tossing of plume and
spear ! —
O, pity me then, when, day by day.
The stout fiend darkens my parlor
door;
And reads me perchance the selfsame
lay
Which melted in music, the night
before.
From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet,
And moved like twin roses which
zephyrs meet!
I cross my floor with a nervous tread,
I whistle and laugh and sing and
shout,
I flourish my cane above his head.
And stir up the fire to roast him out ;
i6o
MISCELLANEOUS.
I topple the chairs, and drum on the
pane,
And press my hands on my ears, in
vain!
I Ve studied Glanville and James the
wise,
And wizard black-letter tomes which
treat
Of demons of every name and size.
Which a Christian man is presumed
to meet,
But never a hint and never a line
Can I find of a reading fiend like mine.
IVe crossed the Psalter with Brady
and Tate,
And laid the Primer above them all,
I Ve nailed a horseshoe over the grate.
And hung a wig to my parlor wall
Once worn by a learned Judge, they
say.
At Salem court in the witchcraft day!
" Conjuro te^ sceleratissiine^
Abire ad timin loctini ! '' — still
Like a visible nightmare he sits by
me, —
The exorcism has lost its skill ;
And I hear again in my haunted room
The husky wheeze and the dolorous
hum !
Ah ! — commend me to Mary Magdalen
With her sevenfold plagues, — to
the wandering Jew,
• To the terrors which haunted Orestes
when
The furies his midnight curtains
drew,
But charm him off, ye who charm him
can.
That reading demon, that fat old
man!
THE PUMPKIN.
O, GREENLY and fair in the lands of
the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich
melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the
cottage enfold.
With broad leaves all greenness and
blossoms all gold.
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet
once grew.
While he waited to know that his
warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and
listened in vain
For the rush of the w^hirlwind and red
ii re-rain.
On the banks of the Xenil the dark
Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled
vine laden ;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to
behold
Through orange-leaves shining the
broad spheres of gold ;
Yet with dearer delight from his home
in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee
looks forth.
Where crook-necks are coiling and
yellow fruit shines.
And the sun of September melts down
on his vines.
Ah ! on Thanksgiving day, when from
East and from West,
From North and from South come the
pilgrim and guest.
When the gray-haired New-Englander
sees round his board
The old broken links of affection re-
stored.
When the care-wearied man seeks his
mother once more.
And the worn matron smiles where
the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lip and w4iat bright-
ens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich
Pumpkin pie?
O, — fruit loved of boyhood ! — the old
days recalling,
EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND.'
i6i
When wood-grapes were purpling and
brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in
its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a
candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-
heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, — our lan-
tern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled
like steam,
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two
rats for her team!
Then thanks for thy present ! — none
sweeter or better
E^er smoked from an oven or circled
a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry
more fine.
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its
baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is
too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may
never be less.
That the days of thy lot may be length-
ened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pump-
kin-vine grow.
And thy life be as sweet, and its last
sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own
Pumpkin pie !
EXTRACT FROM "A NEW
ENGLAND LEGEND."
How has New England's romance fled.
Even as a vision of the morning!
Its rights foredone, — its guardians
dead, —
Its priestesses, bereft of dread.
Waking the veriest urchin's scorn-
ing!
Gone Hke the Indian wizard's yell
And fire-dance round the magic
rock,
M
Forgotten like the Druid's spell
At moonrise by his holy oak !
No more along the shadowy glen,
Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men ;
No more the unquiet churchyard dead
Glimpse upward from their turfy bed,
Startling the traveller, late and lone ;
As, on some night of starless weather,
They silently commune together.
Each sitting on his own head-stone!
The roofless house, decayed, deserted,
Its living tenants all departed,
No longer rings with midnight revel
Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil ;
No pale blue flame sends out its flashes
Through creviced roof and, shattered
sashes ! —
The witch-grass round the hazel spring
May sharply to the night-air sing,
But there no more shall withered hags
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags,
Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters
As beverage meet for Satan's daugh-
ters ;
No more their mimic tones be heard, —
The mew of cat, — the chirp of bird, —
Shrill bending with the hoarser laugh-
ter
Of the fell demon following after!
The cautious goodman nails no more
A horseshoe on his outer door,
Lest some unseemly hag should fit
To his own mouth her bridle-bit, —
The goodw^fe's churn no more refuses
Its wonted culinary uses
Until, with heated needle burned.
The witch has to her place returned!
Our witches are no longer old
And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold,
But young and gay and laughing crea-
tures,
With the heart's sunshine on their
features, —
Their sorcery — the light which dances
Where the raised lid unveils its
glances ;
Or that low-breathed and gentle tone,
The music of Love's twilight hours,
Soft, dreamlike, as a fairy's moan
Above her nightly closing flowers,
l62
MISCELLANEOUS.
Sweeter than that which sighed of
yore.
Along the charmed Ausonian shore!
Even she, our own weird heroine,
Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,
Sleeps calmly where the Uving laid
her ;
And the wide realm of sorcery,
Left by its latest mistress free.
Hath found no gray and skilled in-
vader :
So perished Albion's " glammarye,"
With him in Melrose Abbey sleep-
ing^
His charmed torch beside his knee.
That even the dead himself might
see
The magic scroll within his keep-
ing,
And now our modern Yankee sees
Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries ;
And naught above, below, around,
Of life or death, of sight or sound.
Whatever its nature, form, or look,
Excites his terror or surprise, —
All seeming to his knowing eyes
Familiar as his '^ catechize,"
Or " Webster's Spelling-Book."
HAMPTON BEACH.
The sunlight glitters keen and
bright,
Where, miles away.
Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light.
Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes
of sandy gray.
The tremulous shadow of the Sea!
Against its ground
Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree.
Still as a picture, clear and free,
With varying outline mark the coast
for miles around.
On — on — we tread with loose-flung
rein
Our seaward way,
Through dark-green fields and blos-
soming grain.
Where the wild brier- rose skirts the
lane,
And bends above our heads the flow-
ering locust spray.
Ha! like a kind hand on my brow
Comes this fresh breeze.
Cooling its dull and feverish glow.
While through my being seems to
flow
The breath of a new life, — the heal-
ing of the seas !
Now rest we, where this grassy
mound
His feet hath set
In the great waters, which have
bound
His granite ankles greenly round
With long and tangled moss, and weeds
with cool spray wet.
Good by to pain and care ! I take
Mine ease to-day :
Here where these sunny waters
break.
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
All burdens from the heart, all weary
thoughts away.
I draw a freer breath — I seem
Like all I see —
Waves in the sun — thewdiite-winged
gleam
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam —
And far-off sails which flit before the
south-wind free.
So when Time's veil shall fall
asunder.
The soul may know
No fearful change, nor sudden
wonder.
Nor sink the weight of mystery
under.
But with the upward rise, and with the
vastness grow .
LINES.
163
And all we shrink from now may
seem
No new revealing ;
Familiar as our childhood's stream.
Or pleasant memory of a dream
The loved and cherished Past upon
the new life stealing.
Serene and mild the untried light
May have its dawning ;
And, as in summer's northern
night
The evening and the dawn unite,
The sunset hues of Time blend with
the souPs new morning.
I sit alone ; in foam and spray
Wave after wave
Breaks on the rocks which, stern
and gray,
Shoulder the broken tide aw^ay,
Or murmurs hoarse and strong through
mossy cleft and cave.
What heed I of the dusty land
And noisy town?
I see the mighty deep expand
From its white line of glimmering
sand
To where the blue of heaven on bluer
waves shuts down !
In listless quietude of mind,
I yield to all
The change of cloud and wave and
wind.
And passive on the flood reclined,
I wander with the waves, and with
them rise and fall.
But look, thou dreamer ! — wave and
shore
In shadow lie ;
The night-wind warns me back once
more
To where, my native hill-tops o'er,
Bends like an arch of fire the glowing
sunset sky.
So then, beach, bluff, and wave, fare-
well!
I bear with me
No token stone nor glittering shell.
But long and oft shall Memory tell
Of this brief thoughtful hour of mus-
ing by the Sea.
LINES,
WRITTEN ON HEARING OF THE DEATH
OF SILAS WRIGHT OF NEW YORK.
As they who, tossing midst the storm
at night,
While turning shoreward, where a
beacon shone.
Meet the w^alled blackness of the
heaven alone.
So, on the turbulent waves of party
tossed,
In gloom and tempest, men have seen
thy light
Quenched in the darkness.' At thy
hour of noon,
While life was pleasant to thy un-
dimmed sight.
And, day by day, within thy spirit
grew
A holier hope than young Ambition
knew.
As through thy rural quiet, not in
vain,
Pierced the sharp thrill of Freedom's
cry of pain,
Man of the millions, thou art lost
too soon !
Portents at which the bravest stand
aghast, —
The birth-throes of a Future, strange
and vast,
Alarm the land ; yet thou, so wise
and strong.
Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,
Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever
long,
Hear'st not the tumult surging over-
head.
164
MISCELLANEOUS.
Who now shall rally Freedom\s scat-
tering host?
Who wear the mantle of the leader
lost?
Who stay the march of slavery? He
whose voice
Hath called thee from thy task-field
shall not lack
Yet bolder champions, to beat
bravely back
The wrong which, through his poor
ones, reaches Him :
Yet firmer hands shall Freedonrs
torchlights trim,
And wave them high across the
abysmal black,
Till bound, dumb millions there shall
see them and rejoice.
\oth vw.^ 1847.
LINES,
ACCOMPANYING MANUSCRIPTS PRE-
SENTED TO A FRIEND.
'T IS said that in the Holy Land
The angels of the place have blessed
The pilgrim's bed of desert sand,
Like Jacob's stone of rest.
That down the hush of Syrian skies
Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight
sings
The song whose holy symphonies
Are beat by unseen wings ;
Till starting from his sandy bed,
The wayworn wanderer looks to
see
The halo of an angePs head
Shine through the tamarisk-tree.
So through the shadows of my way
Thy smile hath fallen soft and
clear.
So at the weary close of day
Hath seemed thy voice of cheer.
That pilgrim pressing to his goal
May pause not for the vision's sake,
Yet all fair things within his soul
The thought of it shall wake ;
The graceful palm-tree by the well,
Seen on the far horizon's rim;
The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle.
Bent timidly on him ;
Each pictured saint, whose golden
hair
Streams sunlike through the con-
vent's gloom ;
Pale shrines of martyrs young and fair.
And loving Mary's tomb ;
And thus each tint or shade which
falls.
From sunset cloud or waving tree.
Along my pilgrim path, recalls
The pleasant thought of thee.
Of one in sun and shade the same.
In weal and woe my steady friend.
Whatever by that holy name
The angels comprehend.
Not blind to faults and follies, thou
Hast never failed the good to see.
Nor judged by one unseemly bough
The upward-struggling tree.
These light leaves at thy feet I lay, —
Poor common thoughts on common
things.
Which time is shaking, day by day.
Like feathers from his wings, —
Chance shootings from a frail life-tree,
To nurturing care but little known,
Their good was partly learned of thee
Their folly is my own.
That tree still clasps the kindly mould.
Its leaves still drink the twilight
dew,
And weaving its pale green with gold.
Still shines the sunlio:ht throuo:h.
RAPHAEL.
i6S
There still the morning zephyrs play,
And there at times the spring bird
sings,
And mossy trunk and fading spray
Are flowered with glossy wings.
Yet, even in genial sun and rain,
Root, branch, and leaflet fail and
fade ;
The wanderer on its lonely plain
Erelong shall miss its shade.
O friend beloved, whose curious skill
Keeps bright the last year's leaves
and flowers,
With warm, glad summer thoughts
to fill
The cold, dark, winter hours!
Pressed on thy heart, the leaves I
bring
May well defy the wintry cold,
Until, in Heaven's eternal spring,
Life's fairer ones unfold.
THE REWARD.
Who, looking backward from his
manhood's prime.
Sees not the spectre of his misspent
time?
And, through the shade
Of funeral cypress planted thick be-
hind.
Hears no reproachful whisper on the
wind
From his loved dead?
Who bears no trace of passion's evil
force ?
Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Re-
morse ? —
Who does not cast
On the thronged pages of his mem-
ory's book,
At times, a sad and half-reluctant
look,
Re":retful of the Past?
Alas ! — the evil which we fain would
shun
We do, and leave the wished-for good
undone :
Our strength to-day
Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone
to fall ;
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all
Are we alway.
Yet who, thus looking backward o'er
his years,
Feels not his eyelids wet with grate-
ful tears.
If he hath been
Permitted, weak and sinful as he was.
To cheer and aid, in some ennobling
cause,
His fellow-men?
If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in
A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin, —
If he hath lent
Strength to the weak, and, in an hour
of need,
Over the suffering, mindless of his
creed
Or home, hath bent.
He has not lived in vain, and while
he gives
The praise to Him, in whom he moves
and lives.
With thankful heart ;
He gazes backward, and with hojDe
before,
Knowing that from his works he
nevermore
Can henceforth part.
RAPHAEL.
I SHALL not soon forget that sight :
The glow of autumn's westering
day,
A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael's picture lay.
It was a simple print I saw.
The fair face of a musing boy ;
1 66
MISCELLANEOUS.
Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe
Seemed blending with my joy.
A simple print : — the graceful flow
Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair,
And fresh young lip and cheek, and
brow
Unmarked and clear, were there.
Yet through its sweet and calm repose
I saw the inward spirit shine ;
It was as if before me rose
The white veil of a shrine.
As if, as Gothland's sage has told,
The hidden life, the man within,
Dissevered from its frame and mould,
By mortal eye were seen.
Was it the lifting of that eye.
The waving of that pictured hand?
Loose as a cloud-wreath on the sky,
I saw the walls expand.
The narrow room had vanished, —
space,
Broad, luminous, remained alone,
Through which all hues and shapes
of grace
And beauty looked or shone.
Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil
wrought.
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.
There drooped thy more than mortal
face,
O Mother, beautiful and mild!
Enfolding in one dear embrace
Thy Saviour and thy Child !
The rapt brow of the Desert John ;
The awful glory of that day
When all the Father's brightness
shone
Through manhood's veil of clay.
And, midst gray prophet forms, and
wild
Dark visions of the days of old,
How sweetly woman's beauty smiled
Through locks of brown and gold!
There Fornarina's fair young face
Once more upon her lover shone.
Whose model of an angel's grace
He borrowed from her own.
Slow passed that vision from my
view.
But not the lesson which it taught ;
The soft, calm shadows which it threw
Still rested on my thought :
The truth, that painter, bard, and
sage.
Even in Earth's cold and change-
ful clime.
Plant for their deathless heritage
The fruits and flowers of time.
We shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which the coming life is made.
And fill our Future's atmosphere
With sunshine or with shade.
The tissue of the Life to be
We w^eave with colors all our own.
And in the field of Destiny
We reap as we have sown.
Still shall the soul around it call
The shadows which it gathered
here.
And, painted on the eternal wall,
The Past shall reappear.
Think ye the notes of holy song
On Milton's tuneful ear have died?
Think ye that Raphael's angel throng
Has vanished from his side?
O no! — W^e live our life again :
Or warmly touched, or coldly dim,
The pictures of the Past remain, —
Man's works shall follow him!
LUCY HOOPER.
167
LUCY HOOPER.
They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, —
That all of thee we loved and
cherished
Has with thy summer roses per-
ished :
And left, as its young beauty fled,
An ashen memory in its stead, —
T|ie twilight of a parted day
Whose fading light is cold and
vain ;
The heart's faint echo of a strain
Of low, sweet music passed away.
That true and loving heart, — that gift
Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound,
Bestowing, with a glad unthrift,
Its sunny light on all around,
Affinities which only could
Cleave' to the pure, the true, and good ;
And sympathies which found no rest,
Save with the loveliest and best.
Of them — of thee — remains there
naught
But sorrow in the mourner's
breast ? —
A shadow in the land of thought?
No! — Even ;;/)/ weak and trembling
faith
Can lift for thee the veil which doubt
And human fear have drawn about
The all-awaiting scene of death.
Even as thou wast I see thee still ;
And, save the absence of all ill
And pain and weariness, which here
Summoned the sigh or wrung the tear.
The same as when, two summers back,
I^eside our childhood's Merrimack,
1 saw thy dark eye wander o'er
Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore.
And heard thy low, soft voice alone
Midst lapse of waters, and the tone
Of pine-leaves by the west-wind blown.
There 's not a charm of soul or brow, —
Of all we knew and loved in thee, —
But lives in holier beauty now.
Baptized in immortality!
Not mine the sad and freezino^ dream
Of souls that, with their earthly
mould.
Cast off the loves and joys of old, —
Unbodied, — like a pale moonbeam,
As pure, as passionless, and cold ;
Nor mine the hope of Indra's son.
Of slumbering in oblivion's rest,
Life's myriads blending into one, —
In blank annihilation blest ;
Dust-atoms of the infinite, —
Sparks scattered from the central light,
And winning back through mortal
pain
Their old unconsciousness again.
No ! — I have friends in Spirit
Land, —
Not shadows in a shadowy band.
Not others^ but tJiei)iselves are they.
And still I think of them the same
As when the Master's summons came ;
Their change, — the holy morn-light
breaking
Upon the dream-worn sleeper, wak-
ing,—
A change from twilight into day.
They 've laid thee midst the household
graves.
Where father, brother, sister lie ;
Below thee sweep the dark blue waves,
. Above thee bends the summer sky.
Thy own loved church in sadness read
Her solemn ritual o'er thy head.
And blessed and hallowed with her
prayer
The turf laid lightly o'er thee there.
That church, whose rites and liturgy,
Sublime and old, were truth to thee,
Undoubted to thy bosom taken.
As symbols of a faith unshaken.
Even I, of simpler views, could feel
The beauty of thy trust and zeal ;
And, owning not thy creed, could see
How deep a truth it seemed to thee.
And how thy fervent heart had thrown
O'er all, a coloring of its own,
And kindled up, intense and warm,
A life in every rite and form,
As, wlien on Chebar's banks of old,
The Hebrew's gorgeous vision rolled,
1 68
MISCELLANEOUS.
A spirit filled the vast machine, —
A life '' within the wheels " was seen.
Farewell! A little time, and we
Who knew thee well, and loved thee
here,
One after one shall follow^ thee
As pilgrims through the gate of fear,
Which opens on eternity.
Yet shall we cherish not the less
All that is left our hearts meanwhile ;
The memory of thy loveliness
Shall round our weary pathway
smile.
Like moonlight when the sun has
set, —
A sweet and tender radiance yet.
Thoughts of thy clear-eyed sense of
duty,
Thy generous scorn of all things
wrong, —
The truth, the strength, the graceful
beauty
Which blended in thy song.
All lovely things, by thee beloved,
Shall whisper to our hearts of thee ;
These green hills, where thy child-
hood roved, —
Yon river winding to the sea, —
The sunset light of autumn eves
Reflecting on the deep, still floods,
Cloud, crimson sky, and trembling
leaves
Of rainbow-tinted woods, —
These, in our view, shall henceforth
take
A tenderer meaning for thy sake ;
And all thou lovedst of earth and sky.
Seem sacred to thy memory.
CHANNING.
Not vainly did old poets tell,
Nor vainly did old genius paint
God's great and crowning miracle, —
The hero and the saint I
For even in a faithless day
Can we our sainted ones discern ;
And feel, while with them on the way,
Our hearts within us burn.
And thus the common tongue and pen
Which, world-wide, echo Chan-
ning's fame.
As one of Heaven's anointed men.
Have sanctified his name.
In vain shall Rome her portals bar,
And shut from him her saintly prize.
Whom, in the workPs great calendar,
All men shall canonize.
By Narragansett's sunny bay.
Beneath his green embowering,
wood,
To me it seems but yesterday
Since at his side I stood.
The slopes lay green with summer
rains.
The western wind blew fresh and
free.
And glimmered dow^n the orchard
lanes
The white surf of the sea.
With us was one, who, calm and true,
Life\s highest purpose understood.
And, like his blessed Master, knew
The joy of doing good.
Unlearned, unknown to- lettered fame.
Yet on the lips of England's poor
And toiling millions dwelt his name.
With blessings evermore.
Unknow' n to power or place, yet where
The sun looks o^er the Carib sea,
It blended wdth the freeman's prayer
And song of jubilee.
He told of England's sin and wrong, —
The ills her suiTering children
know, —
The squalor of the city's throng, —
The o^reen field's want and woe.
TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. STORRS.
169
O'er Channing's face the tenderness
Of sympathetic sorrow stole,
Liike a still shadow, passionless, —
The sorrow of the soul.
But when the generous Briton told
How hearts were answering to his
own,
And Freedom's rising murmur rolled
Up to the dull-eared throne,
I saw, meth ought, a glad surprise
Thrill through that frail and pain-
worn frame.
And, kindling in those deep, calm
eyes,
A still and earnest flame.
His few, brief words were such as move
The human heart, — the Faith-sown
seeds
Which ripen in the soil of love
To high heroic deeds.
No bars of sect or clime were felt, —
The Babel strife of tongues had
ceased, —
And at one common altar knelt
The Quaker and the priest.
And not in vain : with strength re-
newed.
And zeal refreshed, and hope less
dim,
For that brief meeting, each pursued
The path allotted him.
How echoes yet each Western hill
And vale with Channing's dying
word ! •
How are the hearts of freemen still
By that great warning stirred !
The stranger treads his native soil,
And pleads, with zeal unfelt before
The honest right of British toil.
The claim of England's poor.
Before him time-wrought barriers fall,
Old fears subside, old hatreds melt,
And, stretching o'er the sea's blue
wall.
The Saxon greets the Celt.
The yeoman on the Scottish lines.
The Sheffield grinder, worn and
grim,
The delver in the Cornwall mines,
Look up with hope to him.
Swart smiters of the glowing steel,
Dark feeders of the forge's flame,
Pale watchers at the loom and wheel,
Repeat his honored name.
And thus the influence of that hour
Of converse on Rhode Island's
strand.
Lives in the calm, resistless power
Which moves our father-land.
God blesses still the generous thought.
And still the fitting word He speeds.
And Truth, at his requiring taught.
He quickens into deeds.
Where is the victory of the grave?
What dust upon the spirit lies ?
God keeps the sacred life he gave, —
The prophet never dies!
TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES
B. STORRS,
LATE PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RE-
SERVE COLLEGE.
Thou hast fallen in thine armor,
Thou martyr of the Lord!
With thy last breath crying, — "On-
ward!"
And thy hand upon the sword.
The haughty heart derideth.
And the sinful lip reviles,
But the blessing of the perishing
Around thy pillow smiles!
When to our cup of trembling,
The added drop is given,
lyo
MISCELLANEOUS.
And the long-suspended thunder
Falls terribly from Heaven, —
When a new and fearful freedom
Ls proffered of the Lord
To the slow-consuming Famine, —
The Pestilence and Sword! —
When the refuges of Falsehood
Shall be swept away in wrath,
And the temple shall be shaken,
With its idol, to the earth, —
Shall not thy words of warning
Be all remembered then?
And thy now unheeded message
Burn in the hearts of men ?
Oppression's hand may scatter
Its nettles on thy tomb.
And even Christian bosoms
Deny thy memory room ;
For lying lips shall torture
Thy mercy into crime,
And the slanderer shall flourish
As the bay-tree for a time.
But where the south-wind Hngers
On Carolina's pines.
Or falls the careless sunbeam
Down Georgia's golden mines, —
Where now beneath his burthen
The toiling slave is driven, —
Where now a tyrant's mockery
Is offered unto Heaven, —
Where Mammon hath its altars
Wet o'er with human blood.
And pride and lust debases
The workmanship of God, —
There shall thy praise be spoken,
Redeemed from Falsehood's ban,
When the fetters shall be broken.
And the slave shall be a inajil
Joy to thy spirit, brother!
A thousand hearts are warm, —
A thousand kindred bosoms
Are baring to the storm.
What though red-handed Violence
With secret Fraud combine?
The wall of fire is round us, —
Our Present Help was thine.
Lo, — the waking up of nations.
From Slavery's fatal sleep, —
The murmur of a Universe, —
Deep calling unto Deep!
Joy to thy spirit, brother!
On every wind of heaven
The onward cheer and summons
Of Freedom's voice is given!
Glory to God forever!
Beyond the despot's will
The soul of Freedom liveth
Imperishable still.
The words which thou hast uttered
Are of that soul a part,
And the good seed thou hast scattered
Is springing from the heart.
In the evil days before us,
And the trials yet to come, —
In the shadow of the prison.
Or the cruel martyrdom, —
We will think of thee, O brother!
And thy sainted name shall be
In the blessing of the captive,
And the anthem of the free.
1834.
LINES,
ON THE DEATH OF S. O. TORREY.
Gone before us, O our brother.
To the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth and beauty
On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,
With a faith like thine?
O, thy gentle smile of greeting
Who again shall see?
Who amidst the solemn meeting
Gaze again on thee ? —
A LAMENT.
171
Who, when peril gathers o'er us,
Wear so calm a brow ?
A LAMENT.
Who, with evil men before us.
So serene as thou?
" The parted spirit,
Knovveth it not our sorrovv? Answereth
Early hath the spoiler found thee,
not
Its blessing to our-tears? "
Brother of our love!
Autumn's faded earth around thee.
The circle is broken, — one seat is
And its storms above !
forsaken, —
Evermore that turf lie lightly.
One bud from the tree of our friend-
And, with future showers,
ship is shaken, —
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly
One heart from among us no longer
Blow the summer flowers!
shall thrill
With joy in our gladness, or grief in
In the locks thy forehead gracing,
our ill.
Not a silvery streak ;
Nor a line of sorrow's tracing
Weep! — lonely and lowly are slum-
On thy fair young cheek ;
bering now
Eyes of light and lips of roses,
The light of her glances, the pride of
Such as Hylas wore, —
her brow,
Over all that curtain closes,
Weep ! — sadly and long shall we listen
Which shall rise no more!
in vain
To hear the soft tones of her welcome
Will the vigil Love is keeping
again.
Round that grave of thine.
Mournfully, like Jazer weeping
Give our tears to the dead ! For hu-
Over Sibmah's vine, —
manity's claim
Will the pleasant memories, swelling
From its silence and darkness is ever
Gentle hearts, of thee.
the same ;
In the spirit's distant dwelling
The hope of that World whose exist-
All unheeded be?
ence is bliss
May not stifle the tears of the mourn-
If the spirit ever gazes,
ers of this.
From its journeyings, back ;
If the immortal ever traces
For, oh ! if one glance the freed spirit
O'er its mortal track ;
can throw
Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us
On the scene of its troubled proba-
Sometimes on our way,
tion below.
And, in hours of sadness, greet us
Than the pride of the marble, the
As a spirit may?
pomp of the dead,
To that glance will be dearer the tears
Peace be with thee, 0 our brother.
which we shed.
In the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another
0, who can forget the mild light of
In thy place to stand.
her smile,
Unto Truth and Freedom giving
Over lips moved with music and feel-
All thy early powers.
ing the while —
Be thy virtues' with the living.
The eye's deep enchantment, dark,
And thy spirit ours !
dream-like, and clear,
172
MISCELLANEOUS.
In the glow of its gladness, the shade
of its tear.
And the charm of her features, while
over the whole
Played the hues of the heart and the
sunshine of soul, —
And the tones of her voice, like the
music which seems
Murmured low in our ears by the
Angel of dreams !
But holier and dearer our memories
hold
Those treasures of feeling, more jDre-
cious than gold, —
The love and the kindness and pity
which gave
Fresh flowers for the bridal, green
wreaths for the grave !
The heart ever open to Charity's
claim,
Unmoved from its purpose by censure
and blame.
While vainly alike on her eye and her
ear
■ Fell the scorn of the heartless, the
jesting and jeer.
How true to our hearts was that beau-
tiful sleeper!
With smiles for the joyful, with tears
for the weeper! —
Yet, evermore prompt, whether mourn-
ful or gay,
With warnings in love to the passing
astray.
For, though spotless herself, she could
sorrow for them
Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure
gem;
And a sigh or a tear could the erring
reprove,
And the sting of reproof was still tem-
pered by love.
As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting
in heaven,
As a star that is lost when the day-
light is given.
As a glad dream of slumber, which
wakens in bliss, '
She hath passed to the world of the
holy from this.
DANIEL WHEELER.
[Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the
Society of Friends, and who had labored
in the cause of his Divine Master in Great
Britain, Russia, and the islands of the Pa-
cific, died in New York in the spring of
1840, while on a religious visit to this coun-
try.]
O DEARLY loved !
And wortiiy of our love! — No more
Thy aged form shall rise before
The hushed and waiting worshipper,
In meek obedience utterance giving
To words of truth, so fresh and living,
That, even to the inward sense.
They bore unquestioned evidence
Of an anointed Messenger!
Or, bowing down thy silver hair
In reverent awfulness of prayer, —
The world, its time and sense, shut
out, —
The brightness of Faith's holy trance
Gathered upon thy countenance.
As if each lingering cloud of
doubt, —
The cold, dark shadows resting here
In Time's unluminous atmosphere, —
Were lifted by an angePs hand.
And through them on thy spiritual eye
Shone down the blessedness on high,
The glory of the Better Land!
The oak has fallen!
While, meet for no good work, the vine
May yet its worthless branches twine.
Who knoweth not that with thee fell
A great man in our Israel.'^
Fallen, while thy loins were girded still.
Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet,
And in thy hand retaining yet
The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell!
DANIEL WHEELER.
^72
Unharmed and safe, where, wild and
free,
Across the Neva's cold morass
The breezes from the Frozen Sea
With winter's arrowy keenness pass ;
Or where the unwarning tropic gale
Smote to the waves thy tattered sail,
Or where the noon-hour\s fervid heat
Against Tahiti's mountains beat ;
The same mysterious Hand which
gave
Deliverance upon land and wave.
Tempered for thee the blasts which
blew
Ladaga's frozen surface o'er,
And blessed for thee the baleful dew
Of evening upon Eimeo's shore.
Beneath this sunny heaven of ours,
Midst our soft airs and opening flowers
Hath given thee a grave !
His will be done,
Who seeth not as man, whose way
Is not as ours! — 'T is well with
thee !
Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay
Disquieted thy closing day.
But, evermore, thy soul could say,
" My Father careth still for me! "
Called from thy hearth and home, —
from her.
The last bud on thy household tree,
The last dear one to minister
In duty and in love to thee,
From all which nature holdeth dear,
Feeble with years and worn with
pain.
To seek our distant land again.
Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing
The things which should befall thee
here.
Whether for labor or for death,
In childlike trust serenely going
To that last trial of thy faith!
O, far away.
Where never shines our Northern star
On that dark waste which Balboa
saw
From Darien's mountains stretchins:
far,
So strange, heaven-broad, and lone,
that there.
With forehead to its damp wind bare,
He bent his mailed knee in awe ;
In many an isle whose coral feet
The surges of that ocean beat,
In thy palm shadows, Oahu,
And Honolulu's silver bay.
Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue,
And taro-plains of Tooboonai,
Are gentle hearts, which long shall be
Sad as our own at thought of thee, —
Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed.
Whose souls in weariness and need
Were strengthened and refreshed
by thine.
For blessed by our Father's hand
Was thy deep love and tender care,
Thy ministry and fervent prayer, —
Grateful as EschoPs clustered vine
To Israel in a wxary land !
And they who drew
By thousands round thee, in the hour
Of prayerful waiting, hushed and
deep.
That He who bade the islands keep
Silence before him, might renew
Their strength with his unslumber-
ing power.
They too shall mourn that thou art
gone.
That nevermore thy aged lip
Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn,
Of those who first, rejoicing, heard
Through thee the Gospel's glorious
v/ord, —
Seals of thy true apostleship.
And, if the brightest diadem.
Whose gems of glory purely burn
Around the ransomed ones in bliss.
Be evermore reserved for them
Who here, through toil and sorrow,
turn
Many to righteousness, —
May we not think of thee as wearing
That star-like crown of light, and
174
MISCELLANEOUS.
Amidst Heaven's white and blissful
band,
The fadeless palm-branch in thy hand ;
And joining with a seraph's tongue
In that new song the elders sung,
Ascribing to its blessed Giver
Thanksgiving, love, and praise for-
ever!
Farewell !
And though the ways of Zion mourn
When her strong ones are called away,
Who like thyself have calmly borne
The heat and burden of the day,
Yet He who slumbereth not nor
sleepeth
His ancient watch around us keepeth ;
Still, sent from his creating hand,
New witnesses for Truth shall stand, —
New instruments to sound abroad
The Gospel of a risen Lord ;
To gather to the fold once more
The desolate and gone astray,
The scattered of a cloudy day.
And Zion's broken walls restore ;
And, through the travail and the toil
Of true obedience, minister
Beauty for ashes, and the oil
Of joy for mourning, unto her!
So shall her holy bounds increase
With walls of praise and gates of
peace :
So shall the Vine, which martyr tears
And blood sustained in other years,
With fresher life be clothed upon ;
And to the world in beauty show
Like the rose-plant of Jericho,
And glorious as Lebanon !
DANIEL NEALL.
I.
Friend of the Slave, and yet the
friend of all ;
Lover of peace, yet ever foremost
when
The need of battling Freedom
called for men
To plant the banner on the outer wall ;
Gentle and kindly, ever at distress
Melted to more than woman's tender-
ness,
Yet firm and steadfast, at his duty's
post
Fronting the violence of a maddened
host.
Like some gray rock from which the
weaves are tossed!
Knowing his deeds of love, men ques-
tioned not
The faith of one whose walk and
word were right, —
Who tranquilly in Life's great task-
field wrought.
And, side by side with evil, scarcely
caught
A stain upon his pilgrim garb of
white :
Prompt to redress another's wrong,
his own
Leaving to Time and Truth and Peni-
tence alone.
II.
Such was our friend. Formed on the
good old plan,
A true and brave and downright hon-
est man! —
He blew no trumpet in the market-
place.
Nor in the church with hypocritic face
Supplied with cant the lack of Chris-
tian grace ;
Loathing pretence, he did with cheer-
ful will
What others talked of while their
hands were still :
And, while '^Lord, Lord!" the pious
tyrants cried.
Who, in the poor, their Master cruci-
fied,
His daily prayer, far better under-
stood
In acts than words, was simply doing
GOOD.
So calm, so constant was his recti-
tude,
GONE.
175
That, J3y his loss alone we know its
Yet, would I say what thy own heart
worth.
appro veth :
And feel how true a man has walked
Our Father's will.
with us on earth.
Calling to Him the dear one whom
dtk 6tk month, 1846.
He loveth.
Is mercy still.
TO MY FRIEND ON THE
Not upon thee or thine the solemn
DEATH OF HIS SISTER.
angel
Hath evil wrought ;
Thine is a grief, the depth of which
Her funeral anthem is a glad evan-
another
gel,—
May never know ;
The good die not !
Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken
brother !
God calls our loved ones, but we lose
To thee I go.
not wholly
What He hath given ;
I lean my heart unto thee, sadly fold-
They live on earth, in thought and
ing
deed, as truly
Thy hand in mine ;
As in his heaven.
With even the weakness of my soul
upholding
And she is with thee ; in thy jDath of
The strength of thine.
trial
She walketh yet ;
I never knew, like thee, the dear de-
Still with the baptism of thy self-
parted ;
denial
I stood not by
Her locks are wet.
When, in calm trust, the pure and
tranquil-hearted
Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields
Lay down to die.
of harvest
Lie white in view !
And on thy ears my words of weak
She lives and loves thee, and the
condoling
God thou servest
Must vainly fall :
To both is true.
The funeral bell which in thy heart is
tolling,
Thrust in thy sickle ! — England's toil-
Sounds over all!
worn peasants
Thy call abide ;
I will not mock thee with the poor
And she thou mourn'st, a pure and
world's common
holy presence,
And heartless phrase,
Shall glean beside !
Nor wrong the memory of a sainted
woman
With idle praise.
GONE.
With silence only as their benediction,
Another hand is beckoning us,
God's angels come
Another call is given ;
Where, in the shadow of a great
And glows once more with Angel-
affliction,
steps
The soul sits dumb !
The path which reaches Heaven.
176
MISCELLANEOUS.
Dur young and gentle friend, whose
smile
Made brighter summer hours,
Amidst the frosts of autumn time
Has left us with the flowers.
No paling of the cheek of bloom
Forewarned us of decay ;
No shadow from the Silent Land
Fell round our sister's way.
The light of her young life went down,
As sinks behind the hill
The glory of a setting star, —
Clear, suddenly, and still.
As pure and sweet, her fair brow
seemed
Eternal as the sky ;
And like the brook^s low song, her
voice, —
A sound which could not die.
And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere.
To give to Heaven a Shining One,
Who walked an Angel here.
The blessing of her quiet life
Fell on us like the dew ;
And good thoughts, w^here her foot-
steps pressed
Like fairy blossoms grew.
Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds
Were in her very look ;
We read her face, as one who reads
A true and holy book :
The measure of a blessed hymn,
To which our hearts could move ;
The breathing of an inward psalm ;
A canticle of love.
We miss her in the place of prayer,
And by the hearth-fire's light ;
We pause beside her door to hear
Once more her sweet " Good-night ! "
There seems a shadow on the day,
Her smile no longer cheers ;
A dimness on the stars of night.
Like eyes that look through tears.
Alone unto our Father's will
One thought hath reconciled ;
That He whose love exceedeth ours
Hath taken home his child.
Fold her, O Father! in thine arms,
And let her henceforth be
A messenger of love between
Our human hearts and thee.
Still let her mild rebuking stand
Between us and the wrong,
And her dear memory serve to make
Our faith in Goodness strong.
And grant that she who, trembling,
here
Distrusted all her powers,
May welcome to her holier home
The well-beloved of ours.
THE LAKE-SIDE.
The shadow^s round the inland sea
Are deepening into night ;
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee
They chase the lessening light.
Tired of the long day's blinding heat,
I rest my languid eye.
Lake of the Hills! where, cool and
sweet,
Thy sunset waters lie!
Along the sky, in wavy lines.
O'er isle and reach and bay.
Green-belted with eternal pines.
The mountains stretch away.
Below, the maple masses sleep
Where shore with water blends,
Wliile midway on the tranquil deep
The evening light descends.
THE HILL-TOP.
177
So seemed it when yon hilPs red
drown,
Of old, the Indian trod.
And, through the sunset air, looked
down
Upon the Smile of God.
To him of light and shade the laws
No forest sceptic taught ;
Their living and eternal Cause
His truer instinct sought.
He saw these mountains in the light
Which now across them shines ;
This lake, in summer sunset bright.
Walled round with sombering pines.
God near him seemed ; from earth and
skies
His loving voice he heard,
As, face to face, in Paradise,
Man stood before the Lord.
Thanks, O our Father! that, like him,
Thy tender love I see.
In radiant hill and woodland dim,
And tinted sunset sea.
For not in mockery dost thou fill
Our earth with light and grace ;
Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will
Behind thy smiling face !
THE HILL-TOP.
The burly driver at my side,
We slowly climbed the hill.
Whose summit, in the hot noontide.
Seemed rising, rising still.
At last, our short noon-shadows hid
The top-stone, bare and brown.
From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid,
The rough mass slanted down.
I felt the cool breath of the North ;
Between me and the sun.
O'er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth,
I saw the cloud-shades run.
Before me, stretched for glistening
miles.
Lay mountain-girdled Squam ;
N
Like green-winged birds, the leafy
isles
Upon its bosom swam.
And, glimmering through the sun-haze
warm.
Far as the eye could roam,
Dark billows of an earthquake storm
Beflecked with clouds like foam.
Their vales in misty shadow deep,
Their rugged peaks in shine,
I saw the mountain ranges sweep
The horizon's northern line.
There towered Chocorua's peak ; and
west,
Moosehillock^s woods were seen.
With many a nameless slide-scarred
crest
And pine-dark gorge between.
Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud,
The great Notch mountains shone.
Watched over by the solemn-browed
And awful face of stone!
" A good look-off! " the driver spake :
" About this time, last year,
I drove a party to the Lake,
And stopped, at evening, here.
'T was duskish down below ; but all
These hills stood in the sun.
Till, dipped behind yon purple wall.
He left them, one by one.
" A lady, who, from Thornton hill.
Had held her place outside,
And, as a pleasant woman will.
Had cheered the long, dull ride.
Besought me, with so sweet a smile.
That — though I hate delays —
I could not choose but rest awhile, — -
(These women have such ways! )
'' On yonder mossy ledge she sat.
Her sketch upon her knees,
A stray brown lock beneath her hat
Unrolling in the breeze ;
Her sweet face, in the sunset light
Upraised and glorified, —
1 78
MISCELLANEOUS.
I never saw a prettier sight
In all my mountain ride.
^' As good as fair ; it seemed her joy
To comfort and to give ;
My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy,
Will bless her while they live!''
The tremor in the driver's tone
His manhood did not shame :
" I dare say, sir, you may have
known — "
He named a well-known name.
Then sank the pyramidal mounds,
The blue lake fled away ;
For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds,
A lighted hearth for day !
From lonely years and weary miles
The shadows fell apart ;
Kind voices cheered, sweet human
smiles
Shone warm into my heart.
We journeyed on ; but earth and sky
Had powTr to charm no more ;
Still dreamed my inward-turning eye
The dream of memory o'er.
Ah! human kindness, human love, —
To few who seek denied, —
Too late we learn to prize above
The whole round world beside!
ON RECEIVING
QUILL FROM
RIOR.
AN EAGLE'S
LAKE SUPE-
All day the darkness and the cold
Upon my heart have lain,
Like shadows on the winter sky,
Like frost upon the pane ;
But now my torpid fancy w^akes.
And, on thy Eagle's plume.
Rides forth, like Sinbad on his bird.
Or witch upon her broom !
Below me roar the rocking pines.
Before me spreads the lake
Whose long and solemn-sounding
waves
Against the sunset break.
I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh
Tlie grain he has not sown ;
I see, with flashing scythe of fire,
The prairie harvest mown !
I hear the far-off voyager's horn ;
I see the Yankee's trail, —
His foot on every mountain-pass,
On every stream his sail.
By forest, lake, and waterfall,
I see his pedler show ;
The mighty mingling with the mean,
The lofty with the low.
He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls,
Upon his loaded wain ;
He 's measuring o'er the Pictured
Rocks,
With eager eyes of gain.
I hear the mattock in the mine,
The axe-stroke in the dell.
The clamor from the Indian lodge,
The Jesuit chapel bell !
I see the swarthy trappers come
From Mississippi's springs ;
And war-chiefs with their painted
brows,
And crests of eagle wings.
scared
squaw s
birch
Behind the
canoe,
The steamer smokes and raves
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves.
I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be ;
The first low wash of waves, where
soon
Shall roll a human sea.
MEMORIES.
179
The rudiments of empire here
Are plastic yet and warm ;
The chaos of a mighty world
Is rounding into form!
Each rude and jostling fragment soon
Its fitting place shall find, —
The raw material of a State,
Its muscle and its mind!
And, westering still, the star which
leads
The New World in its train
Has tipped with fire the icy spears
Of many a mountain chain.
The snowy cones of Oregon
Are kindling on its way;
And California's golden sands
Gleam brighter in its ray !
Then blessings on thy eagle quill,
As, wandering far and wide,
I thank thee for this twilight dream
And Fancy's airy ride!
Yet, welcomer than regal plumes.
Which Western trappers find.
Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance
sown,
Like feathers on the wind.
Thy symbol be the mountain-bird.
Whose glistening quill I hold ;
Thy home the ample air of hope.
And memory's sunset gold !
In thee, let joy with duty join.
And strength unite with love.
The eagle's pinions folding round
The warm heart of the dove!
So, when in darkness sleeps the vale
Where still the blind bird clings,
The sunshine of the upper sky
Shall glitter on thy wings !
MEMORIES.
A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl.
With step as light as summer air.
Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of
pearl.
Shadowed by many a careless curl
Of unconfined and flowing hair;
A seeming child in everything,
Save thoughtful brow and ripening
charms.
As Nature wears the smile of Spring
When sinking into Summer's arms.
A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful
bower,
Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright.
And stainless in its holy white,
Unfolding like a morning flower :
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute.
With every breath of feeling woke.
And, even when the tongue was
mute.
From eye and lip in music spoke.
How thrills once more the lengthen-
ing chain
Of memory, at the thought of thee!
Old hopes which long in dust have
lain.
Old dreams, come thronging back
again.
And boyhood lives again in me ;
I feel its glow upon my cheek.
Its fulness of the heart is mine.
As when I leaned to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes.
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah ! memories of sweet summer eves.
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,
And smiles and tones more dear
than they!
i8o
MISCELLANEOUS.
Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled
My picture of thy youth to see.
When, half a woman, half a child,
Thy very artlessness beguiled.
And folly's self seemed wise in thee ;
I too can smile, when o'er that hour
The lights of memory backward
stream,
Yet feel the while that manhood's
power
Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.
Years have passed on, and left their
trace
Of graver care and deeper thought ;
And unto me the calm, cold face
Of manhood, and to thee the grace
Of woman's pensive beauty brought.
More wide, perchance, for blame than
praise,
The school-boy's humble name has
flown ;
Thine, in the green and quiet ways
Of unobtrusive goodness known.
And wider yet in thought and deed
Diverge our pathways, one in youth ;
Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,
While answers to my spirit's need
The Derby dalesman's simple truth.
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer.
And holy day, and solemn psalm;
For me, the silent reverence where
My brethren gather, slow and calm.
Yet hath thy spirit left on me
An impress Time has worn not out,
And something of myself in thee,
A shadow from the past, I see,
Lingering, even yet, thy way about ;
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
That lesson of its better hours.
Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn
To common dust that path of flow-
ers.
Thus, while at times before our eyes
The shadows melt, and fall apart,
And, smiling through them, round us
lies
The warm light of our morning
skies, —
The Indian Summer of the heart ! —
In secret sympathies of mind.
In founts of feeling which retain
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may
find
Our early dreams not wholly vain !
THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK.
The day is closing dark and cold,
With roaring blast and sleety
showers ;
And through the dusk the lilacs wear
The bloom of snow, instead of
flowers.
I turn me from the gloom without,
To ponder o'er a tale of old,
A legend of the age of Faith,
By dreaming monk or abbess told.
On Tintoretto's canvas lives
That fancy of a loving heart.
In graceful lines and shapes of power,
And hues immortal as his art.
In Provence (so the story runs)
There lived a lord, to whom, as
slave,
A peasant-boy of tender years
The chance of trade or conquest
gave.
Forth-looking from the castle tower,
Beyond the hills with almonds dark,
The straining eye could scarce discern
The chapel of the good St. Mark.
And there, when bitter word or fare
The service of the youth repaid,
By stealth, before that holy shrine,
For grace to bear his wrong, he
prayed.
The steed stamped at the castle gate,
The boar-hunt sounded on the hill ;
THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE.
i8i
Why stayed the Baron from the chase,
With looks so stern, and words so
ill?
"Go, bind yon slave! and let him
learn,
By scath of fire and strain of cord,
How ill they speed who give dead
saints
The homage due their living lord ! "
They bound him on the fearful rack,
When, through the dungeon's
vaulted dark.
He saw the light of shining robes.
And knew the face of good St.
Mark.
Then sank the iron rack apart.
The cords released their cruel clasp,
The pincers, with their teeth of fire.
Fell broken from the torturers
grasp.
And lo ! before the Youth and Saint,
Barred door and wall of stone gave
way ;
And up from bondage and the night
They passed to freedom and the
day!
O dreaming monk ! thy tale is true ; —
O painter! true thy penciPs art;
In tones of hope and prophecy.
Ye whisper to my listening heart !
Unheard no burdened heart's appeal
Moans up to God's inclining ear ;
Unheeded by his tender eye,
Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear.
For still the Lord alone is God !
The pomp and power of tyrant man
Are scattered at his lightest breath.
Like chaff before the winnower's
fan.
Not always shall the slave uplift
His heavy hands to Heaven in vain.
God's angel, like the good St. Mark,
Comes shining down to break his
chain !
O weary ones! ye may not see
Your helpers in their downward
flight;
Nor hear the sound of silver wincrs
low bea
night !
But not the less gray Dothan shone.
With sunbright watchers bending
low.
That Fear's dim eye beheld alone
The spear-heads of the Syrian foe.
There are, who, like the Seer of old.
Can see the helpers God has sent,
And how life's rugged mountain-side
Is white with many an angel tent!
They hear the heralds whom our
Lord
Sends down his pathway to pre-
pare;
And light, Irom others hidden, shines
On their high place of faith and
prayer.
Let such, for earth's despairing ones,
Hopeless, yet longing to be free.
Breathe once again the Prophet's
prayer :
" Lord, ope their eyes, that they
may see! "
THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE.
Calm on the breast of Loch Maree
A little isle reposes ;
A shadow woven of the oak
And willow o'er it closes.
Within, a Druid's mound is seen,
Set round with stony warders ;
A fountain, gushing through the turf,
Flows o'er its grassy borders.
1 82
MISCELLANEOUS.
And whoso bathes therein his brow,
With care or madness burning,
Feels once again his healthful thought
And sense of peace returning.
O restless heart and fevered brain,
Unquiet and unstable,
That holy well of Loch Maree
Is more than idle fable !
Life's changes vex, its discords stun,
Its glaring sunshine blindeth,
And blest is he who on his way
That fount of healing findeth!
The shadows of a humbled will
And contrite heart are o'er it ;
Go read its legend — '^ Trust in
God'' —
On Faith's white stones before it.
TO MY SISTER;
WITH A COPY OF '^ SUPERNATURAL-
ISM OF NEW ENGLAND."
Dear Sister! — while the wise and
sage
Turn coldly from my playful page,
And count it strange that ripened age
Should stoop to boyhood's folly ;
I know that thou wilt judge aright
Of all which makes the heart more
light,
Or lends one star-gleam to the night
Of clouded iMelancholy.
Away with weary cares and themes! —
Swing wide the moonlit gate of
dreams !
Leave free once more the land wdiich
teems
With wonders and romances!
Where thou, with clear discerning
eyes,
Shalt rightly read the truth which
lies
Beneath the quaintly masking guise
Of wild and wizard fancies.
Lo! once again our feet we set
On still green wood-paths, twilight
wet.
By lonely brooks, whose waters fret
The roots of spectral beeches ;
Again the hearth-fire glimmers o'er
Home's whitewashed wall and painted
floor,
And young eyes widening to the lore
Of faery-folks and witches.
Dear heart! — the legend is not vain
Which lights that holy hearth again.
And calling back from care and pain,
And death's funereal sadness.
Draws round its old familiar blaze
The clustering groups of happier days,
And lends to sober manhood's gaze
A glimpse of childish gladness.
And, knowing how my life hath been
A weary work of tongue and pen,
A long, harsh strife with strong-willed
men,
Thou wilt not chide my turning
To con, at times, an idle rhyme.
To pluck a flower from childhood's
cHme,
Or listen, at Life's noonday chime.
For the sweet bells of Mornino:!
AUTUMN THOUGHTS.
FROM "MARGARET SMITH'S JOUR-
NAL."
Gone hath the Spring, with all its
flow^ers,
And gone the Summer's pomp and
show,
And Autumn, in his leafless bowers,
Is waiting for the Winter's snow.
I said to Earth, so cold and gray,
''An emblem of myself thou art " ;
" Not so," the Earth did seem to say,
*' For Spring shall warm my frozen
heart."
TO PIUS IX.
183
I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams
Of warmer sun and softer rain,
And wait to hear the sound of streams
And songs of merry birds again.
But thou, from whom the Spring hath
gone,
For whom the flowers no longer
blow,
Who standest blighted and forlorn.
Like Autumn waiting for the snow :
No hope is thine of sunnier hours.
Thy Winter shall no more depart ;
No Spring revive thy wasted flowers.
Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.
CALEF IN BOSTON.
1692.
In the solemn days of old,
Two men met in Boston town,
One a tradesman frank and bold,
One a preacher of renown.
Cried the last, in bitter tone, —
'* Poisoner of the w^ells of truth !
Satan's hireling, thou hast sown
With his tares the heart of youth ! "
Spake the simple tradesman then, —
'^ God be judge Hwixt thou and I ;
All thou knowest of truth hath been
Unto men like thee a lie.
^^ Falsehoods which we spurn to-day
Were the truths of long ago ;
Let the dead boughs fall awav,
^^ God is good and God is light,
In this faith I rest secure ;
Evil can but serve the right,
Over all shall love endure.
^' Of your spectral puppet play
I have traced the cunning wires;
Come what will, I needs must say,
God is true, and ye are liars.''
When the thought of man is free,
Error fears its lightest tones ; .
So the priest cried, '' Sadducee!''
And the people took up stones.
In the ancient burying-ground,
Side by side the twain now lie, —
One with humble grassy mound.
One with marbles pale and high.
But the Lord hath blessed the seed
Which that tradesman scattered
then,
And the preacher's spectral creed
Chills no more the blood of men.
Let us trust, to one is known
Perfect love which casts out fear,
While the other's joys atone
For the wrono^ he suffered here.
TO PIUS IX.
The cannon's brazen lips are cold ;
No red shell blazes down the air ;
And street and tower, and temple old,
Are silent as despair.
The Lombard stands no more at
bay, —
Rome's fresh young life has bled in
vain;
The ravens scattered by the day
Come back with night again.
Now, while the fratricides of France
Are treading on the neck of Rome,
Hider at Gaeta, — seize thy chance!
Coward and cruel, come !
Creep now from Naples' bloody skirt ;
Thy mummers part was acted well.
While Rome, with steel and fire be-
girt.
Before thy crusade fell !
Her death -groans answered to thy
prayer ;
Thy chant, the drum and bugle-call ;
184
MISCELLANEOUS.
Thy lights, the burning villa's glare ;
Thy beads, the shell and ball !
Let Austria clear thy way, with hands
Foul from Ancona's cruel sack.
And Naples, with his dastard bands
Of murderers, lead thee back !
Rome's lips are dumb ; the orphan's
wail.
The mother's shriek, thou mayst
not hear
Above the faithless Frenchman's hail,
The unsexed shaveling's cheer!
Go, bind on Rome her cast-off weight,
The double curse of crook and
crown.
Though woman's scorn and man-
hood's hate
From wall and roof flash down!
Nor heed those blood-stains on the
wall.
Not Tiber's flood can wash away,
Where, in thy stately Quirinal,
Thy mangled victims lay !
Let the world murmur ; let its cry
Of horror and disgust be heard ; —
Truth stands alone ; thy coward lie
Is backed by lance and sword !
The cannon of St. Angelo,
And chanting priest and clanging
bell.
And beat of drum and bugle blow,
Shall greet thy coming well !
Let lips of iron and tongues of slaves
Fit welcome give thee ; — for her
part,
Rome, frowning o'er her new-made
graves.
Shall curse thee from her heart!
No wreaths of sad Campagna's flowers
Shall childhood in thy pathway fling;
No garlands from their ravaged bowers
Shall Terni's maidens bring ;
But, hateful as that tyrant old.
The mocking witness of his crime,
In thee shall loathing eyes behold
The Nero of our time !
Stand where Rome's blood was freest
shed.
Mock Heaven with impious thanks,
and call
Its curses on the patriot dead,
Its blessings on the Gaul !
Or sit upon thy throne of lies,
A poor, mean idol, blood-be-
smeared.
Whom even its worshippers despise, —
Unhonored, unrevered!
Yet, Scandal of the World ! from thee
One needful truth mankind shall
learn, —
That kings and priests to Liberty
And God are false in turn.
Earth wearies of them ; and the long
Meek sufferance of the Heavens
doth fail ;
Woe for weak tyrants, when the
strong
Wake, struggle, and prevail !
Not vainly Roman hearts have bled
To feed the Crozier and the Crown,
If, roused thereby, the world shall
tread
The twin-born vampires down !
ELLIOTT.
Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer!
play
No trick of priestcraft here!
Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay
A hand on Elliott's bier?
Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,
Beneath his feet he trod :
He knew the locust swarm that cursed
The harvest-fields of God.
ICHABOD.
i8S
On these pale lips, the smothered
A common right to Elliott's name.
thought
A freehold in his grave !
Which England's milHons feel,
A fierce and fearful splendor caught,
As from his forge the steel.
ICHABOD!
Strong-armed as Thor, — a shower of
fi?e
So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn
His smitten anvil flung ;
Which once he wore!
God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb
Tlie glory from his gray hairs gone
Hunger's ire, —
Forevermore!
He gave them all a tongue !
Revile him not, — the Tempter hath
Then let the poor man's horny hands
A snare for all ;
Bear up the mighty dead,
And pitvLng tears, not scorn and wrath,
And labor's swart and stalwart bands
Befit his fall!
Behind as mourners tread.
Leave cant and craft their baptized
0, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
bounds.
When he who might
Leave rank its minster floor ;
Have lighted up and led his age,
Give England's green and daisied
Falls back in night.
grounds
The poet of the poor!
Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven.
Lay down upon his Sheaf's green
Fiend-goaded, dow^n the endless dark,
verge
From hope and heaven !
That brave old heart of oak,
With fitting dirge from sounding
Let not the land once proud of him
forge,
Insult him now.
And pall of furnace smoke !
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim.
Where whirls the stone its dizzy
Dishonored brow.
rounds.
And axe and sledge are swung.
But let its humbled sons, instead,
And, timing to their stormy sounds,
From sea to lake.
His stormy lays are sung.
A long lament, as for the dead.
In sadness make.
There let the peasant's step be heard.
The grinder chant his rhyme ;
Of all we loved and honored, naught
Nor patron's praise nor dainty word
Save power remains, —
Befits the man or tfme.
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh
Still strong in chains.
For him whose w^ords were bread. —
The Runic rhyme and spell whereby
All else is gone ; from those great eyes
The foodless poor were fed !
The soul has fled :
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
Pile up thy tombs of rank and pride,
The man is dead!
O England, as thou wilt !
With pomp to nameless worth denied.
Then, pay the reverence of old days
Emblazon tided guilt!
To his dead fame ;
No part or lot in these we claim ;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
But, o'er the sounding wave,
And hide the shame !
1 86
MISCELLANEOUS.
THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS.
No aimless wanderers, by the fiend
Unrest
Goaded from shore to shore ;
No schoohnen, turning, in their classic
quest.
The leaves of empire o'er.
Simple of faith, and bearing in their
hearts
The love of man and God.
Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient
marts,
And Scythia's steppes, they trod.
Where the long shadows of the fir and
pine
In the night sun are cast,
And the deep heart of many a Norland
mine
Quakes at each riving blast ;
Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa
stands,
A baptized Scythian queen,
With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled
hands.
The North and East between!
Where still, through vales of Grecian
fable, stray
The classic forms of yore,
And Beauty smiles, new risen from the
spray.
And Dian weeps once more ;
Where every tongue in Smyrna's mart
resounds ;
And Stamboul from the sea
Lifts her tall minarets over burial-
grounds
Black with the cypress-tree!
From Malta\s temples to the gates of
Rome,
Following the track of Paul,
And where the Alps gird round the
Switzer's home
Their vast, eternal wall ;
They paused not by the ruins of old
time.
They scanned no pictures rare.
Nor lingered where the snow-locked
mountains climb
The cold abyss of air!
But unto prisons, where men lay in
chains.
To haunts where Hunger pined,
To kings and courts forgetful of the
pains
And wants of human-kind.
Scattering sweet words, and quiet
deeds of good.
Along their way, like flowers.
Or pleading, as Christ's freemen only
could.
With princes and with powers ;
Their single aim the purpose to fulfil
Of Truth, from day to day,
wSimply obedient to its guiding will.
They held their pilgrim way.
Yet dream not, hence, the beautiful
and old
Were wasted on their sight,
Who in the school of Christ had
learned to hold
All outward thinsrs ario^ht.
Not less to them the breath of vine-
yards blown
From ofif the Cyprian shore.
Not less for them the Alps in sunset
shone.
That man they valued more.
A life of beauty lends to all it sees
The beauty of its thought ;
And fairest fori)^ and sweetest harmo-
nies
Make glad its way, unsought.
In sweet accordancy of praise and love.
The singing waters run ;
And sunset mountains wear in light
above
The smile of duty done ;
Sure stands the promise, — ever to the
meek
A heritage is given ;
THE MEN OF OLD.
187
Nor lose they Earth who, single-
; hearted, seek
The rii^hieousness of Heaven!
THE MEN OF OLD.
Well speed thy mission, bold Icono-
clast!
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art,
If, with dry eye, and cold, unloving
heart.
Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of
the Past,
By the great Future's dazzling hope
made blind
To all the beauty, power, and truth
behind.
Not without reverent awe shouldst
thou put by
The cypress Ijranches and the ama-
ranth blooms,
Where, with clasped hands of prayer,
upon their tombs
The effigies of old confessors lie,
God's witnesses ; the voices of his will.
Heard in the slow march of the cen-
turies still!
Such were the men at whose rebuking
frown.
Dark with God's wrath, the tyrant's
knee went down ;
Such from the terrors of the guilty
drew
The vassaPs freedom and the poor
man's due.
St. Ansel m (may he rest forevermore
In Heavens swxet peace!) forbade,
of old, the sale
Of men as slaves, and from the
sacred pale
Hurled the Northumbrian buyers of
the poor.
To ransom souls from bonds and evil
fate
St. Ambrose melted down the sacred
plate, —
Image of saint, the chalice, and the
pix,
Crosses of gold, and silver candle-
sticks..
^^ Man is worth more than tem-
ples! " he replied
To such as came his holy work to
chide.
And brave Cesarius, stripping altars
bare.
And coining from the Abbey's
golden hoard
The. captive's freedom, answered to
the prayer
Or threat of those whose fierce zeal
for the Lord
Stifled their love of man, — ^^An
earthen dish
The last sad supper of the Master
bore :
Most miserable sinners! do ye wish
More than your Lord, and grudge
his dying poor
What your own pride and not his need
requires ?
Souls, than these shining gauds, He
values more ;
Mercy, not sacrifice, his heart de-
sires! "
O foithful worthies! resting far be-
hind
In your dark ages, since 3'e fell asleep.
Much has been done for truth and
human-kind, —
Shadows are scattered wherein ye
groped blind ;
Man claims his birthright, freer pulses
leap
Through peoples driven in your day
like sheep ;
Yet, like vour ow^n, our age's sphere of
light,
Though widening still, is walled
around by night ;
With slow, reluctant eye, the Church
has read.
Sceptic at heart, the lessons of its
Head ;
Counting, too oft, its living members
less
Than the wall's garnish and the pul-
pit's dress ;
iSS
MISCELLANEOUS.
World-moving zeal, with power to
bless and feed
Life's fainting pilgrims, to their utter
need,
Instead of bread, holds out the stone
of creed ;
Sect builds and worships where its
wealth and pride
And vanity stand shrined and deified.
Careless that in the shadow of its walls
God's living temple into ruin falls.
We need, methinks, the prophet-hero
still
Saints true of life, and martyrs strong
of will.
To tread the land, even now, as Xavier
trod
The streets of Goa, barefoot, with
his bell.
Proclaiming freedom in the name of
God,
And startling tyrants with the fear
of hell!
Soft words, smooth prophecies, are
doubtless well ;
But to rebuke the age\s popular crime,
We need the souls of fire, the hearts
of that old time!
THE PEACE CONVENTION AT
BRUSSELS.
Still in thy streets, O Paris! doth
the stain
Of blood defy the cleansing autumn
rain ;
Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins
through,
And Naples mourns that new Bar-
tholomew,
When squalid beggary, for a dole of
bread.
At a crowned murderer's beck of
license, fed
The yawning trenches with her noble
dead ;
Still, doomed Vienna, through thy
stately halls
The shell goes crashing and the red
shot falls,
And, leagued to crush thee, on the
Danube's side.
The bearded Croat and Bosniak spear-
man ride ;
Still in that vale where Himalaya's
snow
Melts round the cornfields and the
. vines below,
The Sikh's hot cannon, answering
ball for ball.
Flames in the breach of Moultan's
shattered wall ;
On Chenab's side the vulture seeks
the slain,
And Sutlej paints with blood its banks
again.
^* What folly, then," the faithless critic
cries.
With sneering lip, and wise, world-
knowing eyes,
'^ While fort to fort, and post to post,
repeat
The ceaseless challenge of the war-
drum's beat.
And round the green earth, to the
church-bell's chime.
The morning drum-roll of the camp
keeps time.
To dream of peace amidst a world in
arms.
Of swords to ploughshares changed by
Scriptural charms.
Of nations, drunken with the wine of
blood.
Staggering to take the Pledge of
Brotherhood,
Like tipplers answering Father
Mathew's call, —
The sullen Spaniard, and the mad-cap
Gaul,
The bull-dog Briton, yielding but with
hfe,
The Yankee swaggering with his
bowie-knife.
The Russ, from banquets with the
vulture shared.
The blood still dripping from his
amber beard,
THE PEACE CONVENTION AT BRUSSELS..
1S9
Quitting their mad Berserker dance to
hear
The dull, meek droning of a drab-coat
seer;
Leaving the sport of Presidents and
Kings,
Where men for dice each titled gam-
bler flings.
To meet alternate on the Seine and
Thames,
For tea and gossip, like old country
dames!
No! let the cravens plead the weak-
lings cant.
Let Cobden cipher, and let Vincent
rant.
Let Sturge preach peace to democratic
throngs,
And Burritt, stammering through his
hundred tongues,
Repeat, in all, his ghostly lessons
o^er.
Timed to the pauses of the battery's
roar ;
Check Ban or Kaiser with the barri-
cade
Of ' Olive-leaves ' and Resolutions
made.
Spike guns with pointed Scripture-
texts, and hope
To capsize navies with a windy trope :
Still shall the glory and the pomp of
War
Along their train the shouting millions
draw ;
Still dusty Labor to the passing Brave
His cap shall doff, and Beauty's ker-
chief wave ;
Still shall the bard to Valor tune his
song,
Still Hero-worship kneel before the
Strong ;
Rosy and sleek, the sable-gowned
divine,
O'er his third bottle of suggestive
wine.
To plumed and s worded auditors, shall
prove
Their trade accordant with the Law
of Love ;
And Church for State, and State for
Church, shall fight,
And both agree, that Might alone is
Right!''
Despite of sneers like these, O faith-
ful few.
Who dare to hold God's word and
witness tnie,
WHiose clear-eyed faith transcends our
evil time.
And o'er the present wilderness of
crime.
Sees the calm future, with its robes of
green.
Its fleece-flecked mountains, and soft
streams between, —
Still keep the path which duty bids ye
tread.
Though w^orldly wisdom shake the
cautious head ;
No truth from Heaven descends upon
our sphere,
Without the greeting of the sceptic's
sneer;
Denied and mocked at, till its bless-
ings fall.
Common as dew and sunshine, overall.
Then, o'er Earth's war-field, till the
strife shall cease.
Like Morven's harpers, sing your song
of peace ;
As in old flible rang the Thracian's
lyre.
Midst howl of fiends and roar of penal
fire.
Till the fierce din to pleasing mur-
murs fell.
And love subdued the maddened
heart of hell.
Lend, once again, that holy song a
tongue.
Which the glad angels of the Advent
sung.
Their cradle-anthem for the Saviour's
birth,
Glory to God, and peace unto the
earth !
Through the mad discord send that
calming word
190
MISCELLANEOUS.
Which wind and wave on wild Genes-
areth lieard.
Lift in Christ's name his Cross against
the Sword!
Not vain the vision which the prophets
saw,
Skirting with green the fiery waste of
war,
Through the hot sand-gleam, looming
soft and calm
On the sky's rim, the fountain-shading
palm.
Still lives for Earth, which fiends so
long have trod.
The great hope resting on the truth
of God, —
Evil shall cease and Violence pass
away,
And the tired world breathe free
through a long Sabbath day.
wth 7no.y 1848.
THE WISH OF TO-DAY.
I ASK not now for gold to gild
With mocking shine a weary frame ;
The yearning of the mind is stilled, —
I ask not now for Fame.
A rose-cloud, dimly seen above.
Melting in heaven's blue depths
away, —
O, sweet, fond dream of human Love !
For thee I may not pray.
But, bowed in lowliness of mind,
1 make my humble wishes known, —
I only ask a will resigned,
0 Father, to thine own!
To-day, beneath thy chastening eye
1 crave alone for peace and rest,
Submissive in thy hand to lie,
And feel that it is best.
A marvel seems the Universe,
A miracle our Life and Death ;
A mystery which I cannot pierce,
Around, above, beneath.
In vain I task my aching brain,
In vain the sage's thought I scan,
I only feel how weak and vain.
How poor and blind, is man.
And now my spirit sighs for home.
And longs for light whereby to see.
And, like a weary child, would come,
O Father, unto thee!
Though oft, like letters traced on sand.
My weak resolves have passed away.
In mercy lend thy helping hand
Unto my prayer to-day!
OUR STATE.
The South-land boasts its teeming
cane,
The prairied West its heavy grain.
And sunset's radiant gates unfold
On rising marts and sands of gold!
Rough, bleak, and hard, our little
State
Is scant of soil, of limits strait;
Her yellow sands are sands alone.
Her only mines are ice and stone!
From Autumn frost to April rain.
Too long her winter woods complain ;
From budding flower to falling leaf,
Her summer time is all too brief.
Yet, on her rocks, and on her sands.
And wintry hills, the school-house
stands.
And what her rugged soil denies,
The harvest of the mind supplies.
The riches of the Commonwealth
Are free, strong minds, and hearts of
health ;
And more to her than gold or grain.
The cunning hand and cultured brain.
For well she keeps her ancient stock.
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim
Rock ;
TO A. K.
191
And still maintains, with milder laws,
And -clearer light, the Good Old
Cause !
Nor heeds the sceptic's puny hands,
While near her school the church-spire
stands ;
Nor fears the blinded bigot\s rule,
While near her church-spire stands the
school.
ALL'S WELL.
The clouds, which rise with thunder,
slake
Our thirsty souls with rain ;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
From off our limbs a chain ;
And wrongs of man to man but make
The love of God more plain.
As through the shadowy lens of even
The eye looks farthest into heaven
On gleams of star and depths of blue
The darin": sunshine never knew^'
SEED-TIME AND HARVEST.
As o'er his furrowed fields which lie
Beneath a coldly-dropping sky,
Yet chill with winter's melted snow.
The husbandman goes forth to sow^.
Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast
The ventures of thy seed we cast.
And trust to warmer sun and rain
To swell the germ, and fill the grain.
Who calls thy glorious service hard?
Who deems it not its own reward?
Who, for its trials, counts it less
A cause of praise and thankfulness?
It may not be our lot to Avield
The sickle in the ripened field ;
Nor ours to hear, on summer eves.
The reaper's song among the sheaves.
Yet where our duty's task is wrought
In unison with God's great thought,
The near and future blend in one,
And whatsoe'er is willed, is done!
And ours the grateful service whence
Comes, day by day, the recompense ;
The hope, the trust, the purpose
stayed.
The fountain and the noonday shade.
And were this life the utmost span,
The only end and aim of man,
Better the toil of fields like these
Than waking dream and slothful ease.
But life, though falling like our grain,
Like that revives and springs again ;
And, early called, how blest are they
Who wait in heaven their harvest-day !
TO A. K.
ON RECEIVING A BASKET OF SEA-
MOSSES.
Thanks for thy gift
Of ocean flowers.
Born where the golden drift
Of the slant sunshine falls
Down the green, tremulous walls
Of water, to the cool still coral bow-
ers.
Where, under rainbows of perpetual
showers,
God's gardens of the deep
His patient angels keep ;
Gladdening the dim, strange solitude
With fairest forms and hues, and
thus
Forever teaching us
The lesson which the many-colored
skies,
The flowers, and leaves, and painted
butterflies.
The deer's branched antlers, the gay
bird that flings
The tropic sunshine from its golden
wings,
192
MISCELLANEOUS.
The brightness of the human counte-
The cloudy horror of the thunder-
nance,
shower
Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance,
His rainbows span ;
Forevermore repeat,
And where the caravan
In varied tones and sweet.
Winds o'er the desert, leaving, as in
That beauty, in and of itself, is good.
air
The crane-flock leaves, no trace of
0 kind and generous friend, o'er
passage there,
whom
He gives the weary eye
The sunset hues of Time are cast,
The palm-leaf shadow for the hot noon
Painting, upon the overpast
hours.
And scattered clouds of noonday
And on its branches dry
sorrow
Calls out the acacia's flowers ;
The promise of a fairer morrow.
And where the dark shaft pierces
An earnest of the better life to come ;
down
The binding of the spirit broken.
Beneath the mountain roots,
The warning to the erring spoken,
Seen by the miner's lamp alone,
The comfort of the sad.
The star-like crystal shoots ;
The eye to see, the hand to cull
So, where, the wdnds and waves
Of common things the beautiful,
below.
The absent heart made glad
The coral-branched gardens
By simple gift or graceful token
grow.
Of love it needs as daily food.
His climbing weeds and mosses
All own one Soufce, and all are
sftow.
good!
Like foliage, on each stony bough,
Hence, tracking sunny cove and
Of varied hues more strangely
reach.
gay
Where spent waves glimmer up
Than forest leaves in autumn^s
the beach,
day; —
And toss their gifts of weed and
Thus evermore.
shell
On sky, and wave, and shore.
From foamy curve and combing
An all-pervading beauty seems to
swell,
say:
No unbefitting task was thine
God's love and power are one ;
To weave these flowers so soft
and they,
and fair
Who, like the thunder of a sultry
In unison with His design
day.
Wholoveth beauty everywhere ;
Smite to restore.
And makes in every zone and
And they, who, like the gentle wind,
clime.
uplift
In ocean and in upper air,
The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and
"All things beautiful in their
drift
time."
Their perfume on the air.
For not alone in tones of awe and
Alike may serve Him, each, with their
power
own gift.
He speaks to man ;
Making their lives a prayer!
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
193
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS, AND OTHER
POEMS, 1852.
" I DO believe, and yet, in grief,
I pray for help to unbelief;
For needful strength aside to lay
The daily cumberings of my way.
" I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant,
Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant.
Profession's smooth hypocrisies,
And creeds of iron, and lives of ease.
" I ponder o'er the sacred word,
I read the record of our Lord ;
And, weak and troubled, envy them
Who touched his seamless garment's
hem ; —
" Who saw the tears of love he wept
Above the grave where Lazarus slept ;
And heard, amidst the shadows dim
Of Olivet, his evening hymn.
" How blessed the swineherd's low
estate,
The beggar crouching at the gate,
The leper loathly and abhorred,
Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord !
^" O sacred soil his sandals pressed !
Sweet fountains of his noonday rest!
O light and air of Palestine.
Impregnate with his life divine!
^' O, bear me thither! Let me look
On Siloa's pool, and Kedron^s brook, —
Kneel at Gethsemane, and by
Genesaret walk, before 1 die!
*' Methinks this cold and northern
night
Would melt before that Orient light ;
And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain.
My childhood's faith revive again!"
So spake my friend, one autumn day,
Where the still river slid away
Beneath us, and above the brown
Red curtains of the woods shut down.
Then said I, — for I could not brook
The mute appealing of his look, —
'- L too, am weak, and faith is small.
And blindness happeneth unto all.
'• Yet, sometimes glimpses on my
sight.
Through present wrong, the eternal
right ;
And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man ;
'' That all of good the past hath had
Remains to make our own time glad, —
Our common daily life divine,
And every land a Palestine.
" Thou weariest of thy present state ;
What gain to thee time's holiest date?
The doubter now perchance had been
As High Priest or as Pilate then!
^^What thought Chorazin's scribes?
What faith
In Him had Nain and Nazareth?
Of the few followers whom He led
One sold him, — all forsook and fled.
'^ O friend! we need nor rock nor
sand,
Nor storied stream of Morning-Land ;
The heavens are glassed in Merri-
mack, —
What more could Jordan render back ?
"We lack but open eye and ear
To find the Orient's marvels here ; —
194
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
The still small voice in autumn's
hush.
Yon maple wood the burning bush.
^* For still the new transcends the
old,
In signs and tokens manifold ; —
Slaves rise up men ; the olive waves.
With roots deep set in battle graves!
^' Through the harsh noises of our day
A low, sweet prelude finds its way ;
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds
of fear.
*' That song of Love, now low and
far.
Erelong shall swell from star to star!
That light, the breaking day, w^hich
tips
The golden-spired Apocalypse! ''
Then, when my good friend shook
his head,
And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said :
*' Thou mind'st me of a story told
In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold.''
And while the slanted sunbeams wove
The shadows of the frost-stained
grove,
And, picturing all, the river ran
O'er cloud and wood, I thus began :
In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood
The Chapel of the Hermits stood ;
And thither, at the close of day.
Came two old pilgrims, worn and
gray.
One, whose impetuous youth defied
The storms of Baikal's wintry side.
And mused and dreamed where tropic
day
Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.
His simple tale of love and woe
All hearts had melted, high or low ; —
A blissful pain, a sweet distress.
Immortal in its tenderness.
Yet, while above his charmed page
Beat quick the young heart of his age.
He walked amidst the crowd unknown,
A sorrowing old man, strange and
lone.
A homeless, troubled age, — the gra}!
Pale setting of a weary day ;
Too dull his ear for voice of praise,
Too sadly worn his brow for bays.
Pride, lust of power and glory, slept ;
Yet still his heart its young dream
kept.
And, wandering like the deluge-dove,
Still sought the resting-place of love.
And, mateless, childless, envied more
The peasant's welcome from his door
By smiling eyes at eventide,
Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.
Until, in place of wife and child,
All-pitying Nature on him smiled,
And gave to him tiie golden keys
To all her inmost sanctities.
Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim !
She laid her great heart bare to him,
Its loves and sweet accords ; — he saw
The beauty of her perfect law.
The language of her signs he knew.
What notes her cloudy clarion blew ;
The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes,
The hymn of sunset's painted skies.
And thus he seemed to hear the song
Which swept, of old, the stars along ;
And to his eyes the earth once more
Its fresh and primal beauty wore.
Who sought with him, from summer
air,
And field and wood, a balm for care ;
And bathed in light of sunset skies
His tortured nerves and weary eyes?
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
195
His fame on all the winds had flown ;
His words had shaken crypt and
throne ;
Like fire, on camp and court and cell
They dropped, and kindled as they
fell.
Beneath the pomps of state, below
The mitred juggler's masque and
show,
A prophecy — a vague hope — ran
His burning thought from man to man.
For peace or rest too well he saw
The fraud of priests, the wrong of
law ;
And felt how hard, between the two,
Their breath of pain the millions
drew.
A prophet-utterance, strong and wild.
The weakness of an unweaned child,
A sun-bright hope for human-kind,
And self-despair, in him combined.
He loathed the false, yet lived not true
To half the glorious truths he knew ;
The doubt, the discord, and the sin,
He mourned without, he felt within.
Untrod by him the path he showed,
Sweet pictures on his easel glowed
Of simple faith, and loves of home.
And virtue's golden days to come.
But weakness, shame, and folly made
The foil to all his pen portrayed ;
Still, where his dreamy splendors
shone,
The shadow of himself was thrown.
Lord, what is man, whose thought, at
times.
Up to thy sevenfold brightness climbs,
While still his grosser instinct clings
To earth, like other creeping things!
So rich in words, in acts so mean ;
So high, so low ; chance-swung
between
The foulness of the penal pit
And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit!
Vain pride of star-lent genius ! — vain
Quick flincy and creative brain,
Unblest by prayerful sacrifice.
Absurdly great, or w eakly wise !
Midst yearnings for a truer life,
Without were fears, within was strife ;
And still his wayward act denied
The perfect good for which he sighed.
The love he sent forth void returned ;
The fame that crowned him scorched
and burned.
Burning, yet cold and drear and
lone, —
A fire-mount in a frozen zone!
Like that the gray-haired, sea-king
passed,
Seen southward from his sleety mast.
About whose brows of changeless
frost
A wreath of flame the wild winds
tossed.
Far round the mournful beauty played
Of lambent light and purple shade,
Lost on the fixed and dumb despair
Of frozen earth and sea and air !
A man apart, unknown, unloved
By those whose wrongs his soul had
moved,
He bore the ban of Church and State,
The good man's fear, the bigot's hate !
Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong.
The twain that summer day had strayed
To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade.
To them the green fields and the
wood
Lent something of their quietude,
And golden-tinted sunset seemed
Prophetical of all they dreamed.
196
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
The hermits from their simple cares
The bell was calling home to prayers,
And, listening to its sound, the twain
Seemed lapped in childhood's trust
again.
Wide open stood the chapel door ;
A sweet old music, swelling o'er
Low prayerful murmurs, issued
thence. —
The Litanies of Providence!
Then Rousseau spake : ^' Where two
or three
In His name meet, He there will be! ''
And then, in silence, on their knees
They sank beneath the chestnut-trees.
As to the blind returning light.
As daybreak to the Arctic night,
Old faith revived : the doubts of years
Dissolved in reverential tears.
That gush of feeling overpast,
" Ah me ! '"" Bernardin sighed at last,
^' I would thy bitterest foes could see
Thy heart as it is seen of me !
" No church of God hast thou denied ;
Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside
A base and hollow counterfeit.
Profaning the pure name of it !
'^ With dry dead moss and marish
weeds
His fire the western herdsman feeds,
And greener from the ashen plain
The sweet spring grasses rise again.
'' Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind
Disturb the solid sky behind ;
And through the cloud the red bolt
rends
The calm, still smile of Heaven
descends !
*^ Thus through the world, like bolt
and blast,
And scourging fire, thy w^ords have
passed.
Clouds break, — the steadfast heavens
remain ;
Weeds burn, — the ashes feed the
grain !
" But whoso strives wdth wrong may
find
Its touch pollute, its darkness blind ;
And learn, as latent fraud is shown
In others' faith, to doubt his own.
^^With dream and falsehood, simple
trust
And pious hope we tread in dust ;
Lost the calm faith in goodness, —
lost
The baptism of the Pentecost !
"Alas! — the blows for error meant
Too oft on truth itself are spent.
As through the false and vile and
base
Looks forth her sad, rebuking face.
" Not ours the Theban's charmed life ;
We come not scathless from the strife!
The Python's coil about us clings.
The trampled Hydra bites and stings!
" Meanwhile, the sport of seeming
chance.
The plastic shapes of circumstance,
What might have been we fondly
guess.
If earlier born, or tempted less.
" And thou, in these wild, troubled
days,
Misjudged alike in blame and praise.
Unsought and undeserved the same
The sceptic's praise, the bigot's
blame ; —
" I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been
Among the highly favored men
Who walked on earth with Fenelon,
He would have owned thee as his
son;
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
197
" And, bright with wings of cherubim
Visibly waving over him.
Seen through his hfe, the Church had
seemed
All that its old confessors dreamed.
" I would have been," Jean Jaques
replied,
" The humblest servant at his side,
Obscure, unknown, content to see
How beautiful man's life may be !
'* O, more than thrice-blest relic, more
Than solemn rite or sacred lore.
The holy life of one who trod
The foot-marks of the Christ of God!
^' Amidst a blinded world he saw
The oneness of the Dual law ;
That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth
began.
And God was loved through love of
man.
" He lived the Truth which reconciled
The strong man Reason, Faith the
child :
In him belief and act were one,
The homilies of duty done! "
So speaking, through the twilight
gray
The two old pilgrims went their way.
What seeds of life that day were sown.
The heavenly watchers knew alone.
Time passed, and Autumn came to
fold
Green Summer in her brown and gold ;
Time passed, and Winter's tears of
snow
Dropped on the grave-mound of Rous-
seau.
^' The tree remaineth where it fell.
The pained on earth is pained in hell ! "
So priestcraft from its altars cursed
The mournful doubts its falsehood
nursed.
Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,
" Thy hand, not man's, on me be
laid!"
Earth frowns below. Heaven weeps
above.
And man is hate, but God is love !
No Hermits now the wanderer sees.
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees ;
A morning dream, a tale that's told.
The wave of change o'er all has rolled.
Yet lives the lesson of that day ;
And from its twilight cool and gray
Comes up a low, sad whisper, ^' Make
The truth thine own, for truth's own
sake.
" Why wait to see in thy brief span
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
No saintly touch can save ; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr's palm.
^^ Midst soulless forms, and false pre-
tence
Of spiritual pride and j^ampered
sense,
A voice saith, ^ What is that to thee?
Be true thyself, and follow Me ! '
'^ In days when throne and altar
heard
The wanton's wish, the bigot's word,
And pomp of state and ritual show
Scarce hid the loathsome death be-
low, —
" Midst fawning priests and courtiers
foul.
The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
Wliite-robed walked Francois Fene-
lon.
Stainless as Uriel in the sun !
'' Yet in his time the stake blazed
red.
The poor were eaten up like bread ;
Men knew him not : his garment's
hem
No healing virtue had for them.
igS
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
" Alas ! no present saint we find ;
The white cymar gleams far behind,
Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
Through telescopic mists of time!
"Trust not in man with passing
breath,
But in the Lord, old Scripture saith ;
The truth which saves thou mayst not
blend
With false professor, faithless friend.
" Search thine own heart. What
paineth thee
In others in thyself may be ;
All dust is frail, all flesh is weak ;
Be thou the true man thou dost seek!
\
^' Where now with pain thou treadest,
trod
The whitest of the saints of God!
To show thee where their feet were
set,
The light which led them shineth yet.
" The footprints of the life divine.
Which marked their path, remain in
thine ;
And that great Life, transfused in
theirs.
Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy
prayers ! "
A lesson which I wtII may heed,
A word of fitness to my need ;
So from that twilight cool and gray
Still saith a voice, or seems to say.
We rose, and slowly homeward
turned,
While clown the west the sunset
burned ;
And, in its light, hill, wood, and
tide,
And human forms seemed glorified.
The village homes transfigured
stood.
And puiple bluffs, whose belting
wood
Across the waters leaned to hold
The yellow leaves like lamps of gold.
Then spake my friend : ^' Thy words
are true ;
Forever old, forever new.
These home-seen splendors are the
same
Which over Eden^s sunsets came.
" To these bowed heavens let wood
and hill
Lift voiceless praise and anthem still ;
Fall, warm with blessing, over them.
Light of the New Jerusalem!
" Flow on, sweet river, like the stream
Of John's Apocalyptic dream!
This mapled ridge shall Horeb be,
Yon o^reen-banked lake our Galilee !
^' Henceforth my heart shall sigh no
more
For olden time and holier shore ;
\s love
there,
Are now and here and everywhere."
QUESTIONS OF LIFE.
199
MISCELLANEOUS.
QUESTIONS OF LIFE.
And tlie angel that was sent unto me,
whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer,
and said,
" Thy heart hath gone too far in this
world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the
way of the Most High ? "
Ihen said I, " Yea, my Lord,"
Then said he unto me, " Go thy way,
weigh me the weight of the fire, or measure
me tlie blast of the wind, or call me again
the day that is past." — 2 Esdras, chap. iv.
A BENDING staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul with-
out
A shield against the shafts of doubt.
And yet, at times, when over all
A darker mystery seems to fall,
(May God forgive the child of dust,
Who seeks to knoiv^ where F^aith
should trust ! )
I raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Uzdom's tempted jDatriarch,
And, speech-confounded, build again
The baffled tower of Shinar's plain.
I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I ? Whither do I go?
A centred self, which feels and is ;
A cry between the silences ;
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life ;
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast
Into the Future from the Past ;
Between the cradle and the shroud,
A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud.
Thorough the vastness. arching all,
I see the great stars rise and fall.
The rounding seasons come and go,
The tided oceans ebb and flow ;
The tokens of a central force,
Whose circles, in their widening
course.
Overlap and move the universe ;
The workings of the law whence
springs
The rhythmic harmony of things.
Which shapes in earth the darkling
spar,
And orbs in heaven the morning star.
Of all I see, in earth and sky, —
Star, flower, beast, bird, — what part
have I ?
This conscious life, — is it the same
Which thrills the universal frame.
Whereby the caverned crystal shoots,
And mounts the sap from forest
roots.
Whereby the exiled wood-bird tells
When Spring makes green her native
dells .^
How feels the stone the pang of birth,
Which brings its sparkling prism
forth?
The forest-tree the throb which gives
The life-blood to its new-born leaves ?
Do bird and blossom feel, like me.
Life's many-folded mystery, —
The wonder which it is to be?
Or stand I severed and distinct,
From Nature's chain of life unlinked?
Allied to all, yet not the less
Prisoned in separate consciousness.
Alone overburdened with a sense
Of life, and cause, and consequence?
In vain to me the Sphinx propounds
The riddle of her sights and sounds ;
Back still the vaulted mystery gives
The echoed question it receives.
What sings the brook? What oracle
Is in the pine-tree's organ swell?
What may the wind's low burden be?
Hie meaning of the moaning sea?
The hieroglyphics of the sfcirs?
Or clouded sunset's crimson bars?
MISCELLANEOUS.
I vainly ask, for mocks my skill
The trick of Nature's cipher still.
I turn from Nature unto men,
I ask the stylus and the pen ;
What sang the bards of old? What
meant
The prophets of the Orient?
The rolls of buried Egypt, hid
In painted tomb and pyramid?
What mean Idumea's arrowy lines,
Or dusk Elora's monstrous signs?
How speaks the primal thought of
man
From the grim carvings of Copan?
Where rests the secret? Where the
keys
Of the old death-bolted mysteries ?
Alas! the dead retain their trust;
Dust hath no answer from the dust.
The great enigma still unguessed,
Unanswered the eternal quest ;
I gather up the scattered rays
Of wisdom in the early days,
Faint gleams and broken, like the
light
Of meteors in a northern night.
Betraying to the darkling earth
The unseen sun which gave them
birth ;
I listen to the sibyPs chant,
The voice of priest and hierophant ;
I know what Indian Kreeshna saith.
And what of life and what of death
The demon taught to Socrates ;
And what, beneath his garden-trees
Slow pacing, with a dream-like tread,
The solemn-thoughted Plato said ;
Nor lack I tokens, great or small,
Of God's clear light in each and all.
While holding with more dear regard
The scroll of Hebrew seer and bard.
The starry pages promise-lit
With Christ's Evangel over-writ.
Thy miracle of life and death,
O holy one of Nazareth !
On Aztec ruins, gray and lone.
The circling serpent coils in stone, —
Type of the endless and unknow^n ;
Whereof we seek the clew to find.
With groping lingers of the blind!
Forever sought, and never found.
We trace that serpent-symbol round
Our resting-place, our starting bound !
O thriftless ness of dream and guess!
0 wisdom which is foolishness!
Why idly seek from outward things
The answer inward silence brings ;
Why stretch beyond our proper sphere
And age, for that which lies so near?
Wliy climb the far-off hills with pain,
A nearer view of heaven to gain?
In lowliest depths of bosky dells
The hermit Contemplation dwells.
A fountain's pine-hung slope his seat.
And lotus-twined his silent feet.
Whence, piercing heaven, with
screened sight,
He sees at noon the stars, whose
light
Shall glorify the coming night.
Here let me pause, my quest forego ;
Enough for me to feel and know
That he in whom the cause and end,
The past and future, meet and blend, —
Who, girt with his immensities,
Our vast and star-hung system sees.
Small as the clustered Pleiades, —
Moves not alone the heavenly quires,
But waves the spring-time's grassy
spires.
Guards not archangel feet alone,
But deigns to guide and keep my own ;
Speaks not alone the words of fate
Which worlds destroy, and worlds
create.
But whispers in my spirit's ear.
In tones of love, or warning fear,
A language none beside may hear.
To Him, from wanderings long and
wild,
1 come, an over-wearied child.
In cool and shade his peace to find.
Like dew-fall settling on my mind.
Assured that all I know is best.
And humbly trusting for the rest,
THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES.
20 1
I turn from Fancy's cloud-built
Strong consolation ; leave them not
scheme,
to doubt
Dark creed, and mournful eastern
Thy providential care, nor yet with-
dream
out
Of power, impersonal and cold.
The hope which all thy attributes
Controlling all, itself controlled.
inspire,
Maker and slave of iron laws,
That not in vain the martyr's robe of
Alike the subject and the cause ;
fire
From vain philosophies, that try
Is worn, nor the sad prisoner's fret-
The sevenfold gates of mystery,
ting chain ;
And, baffled ever, babble still,
Since all who suffer for thy truth send
Word-prodigal of fate and will ;
forth,
From. Nature, and her mockery, Art,
Electrical, with every throb of pain.
And book and speech of men apart,
Unquenchable sparks, thy own bap-
To the still witness in my heart ;
tismal rain
With reverence waiting to behold
Of fire and spirit over all the earth,
His Avatar of love untold.
Making the dead in slavery live
The Eternal Beauty new and old !
again.
Let this great hope be with them, as
they lie
THE PRISONERS OF NAPLES.
Shut from the light, the greenness,
and the sky, —
I HAVE been thinking of the victims
From the cool waters and the pleas-
bound
*ant breeze,
In Naples, dying for the lack of air
The smell of flowers, and shade of
And sunshine, in their close, damp
summer trees ;
cells of pain.
Bound with the felon lepers, whom
Where hope is not, and innocence in
disease
vain
And sins abhorred make loathsome ;
Appeals against the torture and the
let them share
chain !
Pellico's faith, Foresti's strength to
Unfortunates ! whose crime it was to
bear
share
Years of unutterable torment, stern
Our common love of freedom, and to
and still.
dare.
As the chained Titan victor through
In its behalf, Rome's harlot triple-
his will !
crowned.
Comfort them with thy future; let
And her base pander, the most hate-
them see
ful thing
The day-dawn of Italian liberty ;
Who upon Christian or on Pagan
For that, with all good things, is hid
ground
with Thee,
Makes vile the old heroic name of
And, perfect in thy thought, awaits
king.
its time to be !
0 God most merciful! Father just
and kind !
I, who have spoken for freedom at
Whom man hath bound let thy right
the cost
hand unbind.
Of some weak friendships, or some
Or, if thy purposes of good behind
paltry prize
Their ills lie hidden, let the sufferers
Of name or place, and more than I
find
have lost
MISCELLANEOUS.
Have gained in wider reach of sym-
pathies.
And free communion with the good
and wise, —
May God forbid that I should ever
boast
Such easy self-denial, or repine
That the strong pulse of health no
more is mine ;
That, overworn at noonday, I must
yield
To other hands the gleaning of the
field,—
A tired on-looker through the day's
decline.
For blest beyond deserving still, and
knowing
That kindly Providence its care is
showing
In the withdrawal as in the bestowing.
Scarcely I dare for more or less to
pray.
Beautiful yet for me this autumn day
Melts on its sunset hills ; and, far
away,
For me the Ocean lifts its solemn
psalm.
To me the pine-woods whisper; and
for me
Yon river, winding through its vales
of calm.
By greenest banks, with asters purple-
starred.
And gentian bloom and golden-rod
made gay,
Flow^s down in silent gladness to the
sea,
Like a pure spirit to its great reward !
Nor lack I friends, long-tried and
near and dear,
Whose love is round me like this
atmosphere,
Warm, soft, and golden. For such
gifts to me
What shall I render, O my God, to
thee?
Let me not dw^ll upon my lighter share
Of pain and ill that human life must
bear;
Save me from selfish pining ; let my
heart,
Drawn from itself in sympathy, forget
The bitter longings of a vain regret,
The anguish of its own peculiar smart.
Remembering others, as I have to-day,
In their great sorrows, let me live al way
Not for myself alone, but have a part,
Such as a frail and erring spirit may.
In love which is of Thee, and which
indeed Thou art!
MOLOCH IN STATE STREET.
The moon has set : while yet the
dawn
Breaks cold and gray,
Between the midnight and the morn
Bear off your prey !
On, swift and still! — the conscious
street
Is panged and stirred ;
Tread light! — that fall of serried feet
The dead have heard !
The first drawn blood of Freedom's
veins
Gushed where ye tread ;
Lo! through the dusk the martyr-
stains
Blush darkly red I
Beneath the slowly waning stars
And whitening day.
What stern and awful presence bars
That sacred way ?
What faces frown upon ye, dark
With shame and pain?
Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim
bark?
Is that young Vane?
Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on
With mocking cheer?
Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson,
And Gasfe are here!
THE TEACE OF EUROPE.
203
For ready mart or favoring blast
Through Moloch's fire
Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed
The Tyrian sire.
Ye make that ancient sacrifice
Of Man to Gain,
Your traffic thrives, where Freedom
dies.
Beneath the chain.
Ye sow to-day, your harvest, scorn
And hate, is near ;
How think ye freemen, mountain-born.
The tale will hear?
Thank God! our mother State can yet
Her fame retrieve ;
To you and to your children let
The scandal cleave.
Chain Plall and Pulpit, Court and
Press,
Make gods of gold ;
Let honor, truth, and manliness
Like wares be sold.
Your hoards are great, your walls are
strong,
But God is just ;
The gilded chambers built by wrong
Invite the rust.
What ! know ye not the gains of Crime
Are dust and dross ;
Its ventures on the waves of time
Foredoomed to loss !
And still the Pilgrim State remains
What she hath been ;
Her inland hills, her seaward plains.
Still nurture men!
Nor wholly lost the fallen mart, —
Her olden blood
Through many a free and generous
heart
Still pours its flood.
That brave old blood, quick-flowing
yet,
Shall know no check.
Till a free people's foot is set
On Slavery's neck.
Even now, the peel of bell and gun.
And hills aflame.
Tell of the first great triumph won
In Freedom's name.
The long night dies : the welcome gray
Of dawn we see ;
Speed up the heavens thy perfect day,
God of the free!
THE PEACE OF EUROPE.
1852.
'' Great peace in Europe ! Order
reigns
From Tiber's hills to Danube's
plains ! "
So say her kings and priests ; so say
The lying prophets of our day.
Go lay to earth a listening ear ;
The tramp of measured marches
hear, —
The rolling of the cannon's wheel.
The shotted musket's murderous peal,
The night alarm, the sentry's call.
The quick-eared spy in hut and hall!
P^rom Polar sea and tropic fen
The dying-groans of exiled men !
The bolted cell, the galley's chains,
The scaffold smoking with its stains!
Order, — the hush of brooding slaves!
Peace, — in the dungeon-vaults and
graves !
O Fisher! of the world-wide net,
With meshes in all waters set.
Whose fabled keys of heaven and hell
J^olt hard the patriot's prison-cell,
And open wide the banquet-hall.
Where kings and priests hold carnival !
Weak vassal tricked in royal guise.
204
MISCELLANEOUS.
Boy Kaiser with thy lip of lies ;
Base gambler for Napoleon's crown,
Barnacle on his dead renown!
Thou, Bourbon Neapolitan,
Crowned scandal, loathed of God and
man ;
And thou, fell Spider of the North!
wStretching thy giant feelers forth,
Within whose web the freedom dies
Of nations eaten up like flies!
Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and
Czar!
If this be Peace, pray what is War?
White Angel of the Lord! unmeet
That soil accursed for thy pure feet.
Never in Slavery's desert flows
The fountain of thy charmed repose ;
No tyrant's hand thy chaplet weaves
Of lilies and of olive-leaves ;
Not with the wicked shalt thou dwell.
Thus saith the Eternal Oracle ;
Thy home is with the pure and free!
Stern herald of thy better day,
Before thee, to prepare thy way,
The Baptist Shade of Liberty,
Gray, scarred and hairy-robed, must
press
With bleeding feet the wilderness!
O that its voice might pierce the ear
Of princes, trembling while they hear
A cry as of the Hebrew seer :
Repent ! God's kingdom draweth near !
WORDSWORTH.
WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF HIS
MEMOIRS.
Dear friends, who read the world
aright.
And in its common forms discern
A beauty and a harmony
The many never learn!
Kindred in soul of him who found
In simple flower and leaf and stone
The impulse of the sweetest lays
Our Saxon tongue has known, —
Accept this record of a life
As sweet and pure, as calm and good,
As a long day of blandest June
In green field and in wood.
How welcome to our ears, long pained
By strife of sect and party noise.
The brook-like murmur of his song
Of nature's simple joys !
The violet by its mossy stone,
The primrose by tlie rivers brim.
And chance-sown daifodil, have found
Immortal life through him.
The sunrise on his breezy lake.
The rosy tints his sunset brought.
World-seen, are gladdening all the
vales
And mountain-peaks of thought.
Art builds on sand ; the w'orks of pride
And human passion change and fall ;
But that which shares the life of God
With him surviveth all.
TO .
LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER
day's EXCURSION.
Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,
In hieroglyph of bud and bloom.
Her mysteries are told ;
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead.
The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,
In lessons manifold!
*
Thanks for the courtesy, and gay
Good-humor, which on Washing Day
Our ill-timed visit bore ;
Thanks for your graceful oars, which
broke
The morning dreams of Artichoke,
Along his wooded shore!
Varied as varying Nature's ways.
Sprites of the river, woodland fays.
Or mountain nymphs, ye seem ;
IN PEACE.
205
Free-limbed Dianas on the green,
Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,
Upon your favorite stream.
The forms of which the poets told,
The fair benignities of old,
Were doubtless such as you ;
What more than Artichoke the rill
Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill
Arcadia's mountain view?
No sweeter bowers the bee delayed.
In wild Hymettus' scented shade.
Than those you dwell among ;
Snow-flowered azalias, intertwined
With roses, over banks inclined
With trembling harebells hung!
A charmed life unknown to death,
Immortal freshness Nature hath;
Her fabled fount and glen
Are now and here : Dodona's shrine
Still murmurs in the wind-swept
pine,—
All is that e'er hath been.
The Beauty which old Greece or
Rome
Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at
home ;
We need but eye and ear
In all our daily walks to trace
The outlines of incarnate grace,
The hymns of gods to hear!
IN PEACE.
A TRACK of moonlight on a quiet lake.
Whose small waves on a silver-
sanded shore
Whisper of peace, and with the low
winds make
Such harmonies as keep the woods
awake,
And listening all night long for their
sweet sake
A green-waved slope of meadow,
hovered o'er
By angel-troops of lilies, swaying
light
On viewless stems, with folded wings
of white ;
A slumberous stretch of mountain-
land, far seen
Where the low westering day, with
gold and green.
Purple and amber, softly blended, fills
The wooded vales, and melts among
the hills ;
A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest
On the calm bosom of a stormless
sea.
Bearing alike upon its placid breast,
W^ith earthly flowers and heavenly
stars impressed,
The hues of time and of eternity :
Such are the pictures which the thought
of thee,
O friend, awakeneth, — charming the
keen pain
Of thy departure, and our sense of
loss
Requiting with the fulness of thy gain.
Lo ! on the quiet grave thy life-borne
cross,
Dropped only at its side, methinks
doth shine.
Of thy beatitude the radiant sign!
No sob of grief, no wild lament be
there.
To break the Sabbath of the holy
ail-;
But, in theirstead.the silent-breathing
prayer
Of hearts still waiting for a rest like
thine.
O spirit redeemed! Forgive us, ii
henceforth.
With sweet and pure similitudes of
earth,
We keep thy pleasant memory
freshly green.
Of love's inheritance a priceless part.
Which Fancy's self, in reverent awe,
is seen
To paint, forgetful of the tricks of art,
With pencil dipped alone in colors
of the heart.
2o6
MISCELLANEOUS.
BENEDICITE.
God's love and peace be with thee,
where
Soever this soft autumnal air
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair !
Whether through city casements
comes
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,
Or, out among the woodland blooms.
It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face.
Imparting, in its glad embrace,
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace !
Fair Nature's book together read,
The old wood-paths that knew our
tread,
The maple shadows overhead, —
The hills we climbed, the river seen
By gleams along its deep ravine, —
All keep thy memory fresh and green.
Where'er I look, where'er I stray,
Thy tliought goes with me on my way,
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day ;
O'er lapse of time and change of scene.
The weary waste which lies between
Thyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-
word, nor
The half-unconscious power to draw
All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law.
With these good gifts of God is cast
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast
To hold the blessed angels fast.
If, then, a fervent wish for thee
The gracious heavens will heed from
me,
What should, dear heart, its burden
be?
The sighing of a shaken reed, —
What can I more than meekly plead
The greatness of our common need?
God's love, — unchanging, pure, and
true, —
The Paraclete white-shining through
His peace, — the fall of Hermon's dew !
With such a prayer, on this sweet day,
As thou mayst hear and I may say,
I greet thee, dearest, far away !
PICTURES.
Light, warmth, and sprouting green-
ness, and o'er all
Blue, stainless, steel-bright ether,
raining down
Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed
town.
The freshening meadows, and the
hillsides brown ;
Voice of the west-wind from the
hills of pine.
And the brimmed river from its dis-
tant fall.
Low hum of bees, and joyous inter-
lude
Of bird-songs in the streamlet-skirt-
ing wood, —
Heralds and prophecies of sound
and sight,
Blessed forerunners of the warmth
and light.
Attendant angels to the house of
prayer.
With reverent footsteps keeping
pace with mine, —
Once more, through God's great love,
with you I share
A morn of resurrection sweet and fair
As that which saw, of old, in Pal-
estine,
Immortal Love uprising in fresh
bloom
DEKNE.
207
From the dark night and winter of
the tomb!
5/// ino.^ 2ii, 1852.
II.
White with its sun-bleached dust, the
pathway winds
Before me ; dust is on the shrunken
grass,
And on the trees beneath whose
boughs I pass ;
Frail screen against the Hunter of
the sky,
Who, glaring on me with his lidless
eye,
0 While mounting with his dog-
star high and higher
Ambushed in light intolerable, un-
binds
The burnished quiver of his
shafts of fire
Between me and the hot fields of
his South
A tremulous glow, as from a fur-
nace-mouth,
Glimmers and swims before my
dazzled sight.
As if the burning arrows of his
ire
Broke as they fell, and shattered
into light ;
Yet on my cheek I feel the western
wind.
And hear it telling to the orchard
trees.
And to the faint and flower-forsaken
bees,
s of 1
constant streams,
And mountains rising blue and cool
behind.
Where in moist dells the purple
orchis gleams,
And starred with white the virgin's
bower is twined.
So the overwearied pilgrim, as he
fares
Along life's summer waste, at times
is fanned,
Even at noontide, by the cool, sweet
airs
Of a serener and a holier land,
Fresh as the morn, and as the dew-
fall bland.
Breath of the blessed Heaven for
which we pray.
Blow from the eternal hills! — make
glad our earthly way !
8/// Nio.j 1852.
DERNE.
Night on the city of the Moor!
On mosque and tomb, and white-
walled shore,
On sea-waves, to w^hose ceaseless
knock
The narrow harbor-gates unlock,
On corsair's galley, carack tall,
And plundered Christian caraval !
The sounds of Moslem life are still ;
No mule-bell tinkles down the hill ;
Stretched in the broad court of the
khan.
The dusty Bornou caravan
Lies heaped in slumber, beast and
man ;
The Sheik is dreaming in his tent,
His noisy Arab tongue overspent;
The kiosk's glimmering lights are
gone,
The merchant with his wares with-
drawn ;
Rough pillowed on some pirate breast,
The dancing-girl has sunk to rest ;
And, save where measured footsteps
foil
Along the Bashaw's guarded wall,
Or where, like some bad dream, the
Jew
Creeps stealthily his quarter through,
Or counts with fear his golden heaps,
The City of the Corsair sleeps!
But where yon prison long and low
Stands black against the pale star-
glow.
Chafed by the ceaseless wash of waves,
208
MISCELLANEOUS.
There watch and pine the Christian
slaves ; —
Rough-bearded men, whose far-off
wives
Wear out with grief their lonely lives ;
And youth, still flashing from his
eyes
The clear bJue of New England skies,
A treasured lock of whose soft hair
Now wakes some sorrowing mother's
prayer ;
Or, worn upon some maiden breast.
Stirs with the loving heart's unrest!
A bitter cup each life must drain,
The groaning earth is cursed with
pain,
And, like the scroll the angel bore
The shuddering Hebrew seer before,
O'er writ alike, w^ithout, within,
With all the woes which follow^ sin ;
But, bitterest of the ills beneath
Whose load man totters down to
death,
Ls that which plucks the regal crown
Of Freedom from his forehead down.
And snatches from his powerless
hand
The sceptred sign of self-command,
Effacing with the chain and rod
The image and the seal of God ;
Till from his nature, day by day.
The manly virtues fall aw^ay.
And leave him naked, blind, and
mute.
The godlike merging in the brute !
Why mourn the quiet ones who die
Beneath affection's tender eye,
Unto their household and their kin
Like lipened corn-sheaves gathered
in?
O weeper, from that tranquil sod.
That holy harvest-home of God,
Turn to the quick and suffering, —
shed
Thy tears upon the living dead !
Thank God above thy dear ones'
graves,
They sleep with Him, -
slaves.
- they are not
What dark mass, down the mountain-
sides
Swift-pouring, like a stream divides? —
A long, loose, straggling caravan.
Camel and horse and armdd man.
The moon's low crescent, glimmering
o'er
Its grave of waters to the shore.
Lights up that mountain cavalcade.
And glints from gun and spear and
blade
Near and more near! — now o'er
them falls
The shadow of the city walls.
Hark to the sentry's challenge,
drowned
In the fierce trumpet's charging
sound ! —
The rush of men, the musket's peal.
The short, sharp clang of meeting
steel!
Vain, Moslem, vain thy lifeblood
poured
So freely on thy foeman's sword!
Not to the swift nor to the strong
The battles of the right belong ;
For he who strikes for Freedom wears
The armor of the captive's prayers,
And Nature proffers to his cause
The strength of her eternal laws ;
While he whose arm essays to bind
And herd with common brutes his
kind
Strives evermore at fearful odds
With Nature and the jealous gods.
And dares the dread recoil which late
Or soon their right shall vindicate.
'Tis done, — the horned crescent falls!
The star-flag flouts the broken walls !
Joy to the captive husband ! joy
To thy sick heart, O brown-locked
boy!
In sullen wrath the conquered Moor
Wide open flings your dungeon-door,
And leaves ye free from cell and chain,
INVOCATION.
209
The owners of yourselves again.
Dark as his allies desert-born.
Soiled with the battle's stain, and worn
With the long marches of his band
Through hottest wastes of rock and
sand, —
Scorched by the sun and furnace-
breath
Of the red desert's wind of death.
With welcome words and grasping
hands,
The victor and deliverer stands !
The tale is one of distant skies ;
The dust of half a century lies
Upon it ; yet its hero's name
Still lingers on the lips of Fame.
Men speak the praise of him who
gave
Deliverance to the Moorman's slave,
Yet dared to brand with shame and
crime
The heroes of our land and time, —
The self-forgetful ones, who stake
Home, name, and life for freedom's
sake.
God mend his heart who cannot feel
The impulse of a holy zeal,
And sees not, with his sordid eyes.
The beauty of self-sacrifice!
Though in the sacred place he stands.
Uplifting consecrated hands.
Unworthy are his lips to tell
Of Jesus' martyr-miracle.
Or name aright that dread embrace
Of sufferin": for a follcn race !
ASTR^A.
"Jove means to settle
Astraea in her seat again,
And let down from his golden chain
An age of better metal."
Ben Jonson, 1615.
O POET rare and old!
Thy words are prophecies ;
Forward the age of gold, .
The new Saturnian Hes.
The universal prayer
And hope are not in vain ;
Rise, brothers ! and prepare
The way for Saturn's reign.
Perish shall all which takes
From labor's board and can ;
Perish shall all which makes
A spaniel of the man !
Free from its bonds the mind,
The body from the rod ;
Broken all chains that bind
The image of our God.
Just men no longer pine
Behind their prison-bars ;
Through the rent dungeon shine
The free sun and the stars.
Earth own, at last, untrod
By sect, or caste, or clan,
The fatherhood of God,
The brotherhood of man!
Fraud fail, craft perish, forth
The money-changers driven,
And God's will done on earth,
As now in heaven !
INVOCATION.
Through thy clear spaces. Lord, of
old.
Formless and void the dead earth
rolled ;
Deaf to thy heaven's sweet music,
blind
To the great lights which o'er it
shined ;
No sound, no ra}', no warmth, no
breath, —
A dumb despair, a wandering death.
To that dark, weltering horror came
Thy spirit, like a subtle flame, —
A breath of life electrical,
Awakening and transforming all.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Till beat and thrilled in every part
The pulses of a living heart.
Then knew their bounds the land and
sea ;
Then smiled the bloom of mead and
tree ;
From flower to moth, from beast to
man,
The quick creative impulse ran ;
And earth, with life from thee re-
newed.
Was in thy holy eyesight good.
As lost and void, as dark and cold
And formless as that earth of old, —
A wandering waste of storm and
night.
Midst spheres of song and realms of
light,—
A blot upon thy holy sky.
Untouched, unwarned of thee, am L
O thou who movest on the deep
Of spirits, wake my own from sleep!
Its darkness melt, its coldness warm,
The lost restore, the ill transform.
That flower and fruit henceforth may
be
Its grateful offering, worthy thee.
THE CROSS.
ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD DILL-
INGHAM, IN THE NASHVILLE PENI-
TENTIARY.
"The cross, if rightly borne, shall be
No burden, but support to thee '' ; ^
So, moved of old time for our sake.
The holy monk of Kempen spake.
Thou brave and true one! upon whom
Was laid the cross of martyrdom.
How didst thou, in thy generous
youth,
Bear witness to this blessed truth !
1 Thomas k Kempis. Imit. Christ.
Thy cross of suffering and of shame
A staff within thy hands became,
In paths where faith alone could see
The Master's steps supporting thee.
Thine was the seed-time ; God alone
Beholds the end of what is sown ;
Beyond our vision, weak and dim.
The harvest-time is hid with Him.
Yet, unforgotten where it lies.
That seed of generous sacrifice.
Though seeming on the desert cast.
Shall rise with bloom and fruit at last.
'EVA.
Dry the tears for holy Eva,
With the blessed angels leave her ;
Of the form so soft and fair
Give to earth the tender care.
For the golden locks of Eva
Let the sunny south-land give her
Flowery pillow of repose, —
Orange-bloom and budding rose.
In the better home of Eva
Let the shining ones receive her,
W^ith the welcome-voiced psalm.
Harp of gold and waving palm !
All is light and peace with Eva ;
There the darkness cometh never ;
Tears are wiped, and fetters fall,
And the Lord is all in all.
Weep no more for happy Eva,
Wrong and sin no more shall grieve
her;
Care and pain and weariness.
Lost in love so measureless.
Gentle Eva, loving Eva,
Child confessor, true believer,
Listener at the Master's knee,
''Suffer such to come to me."
APRIL.
O, for faith like thine, sweet Eva,
Lighting all the solemn river,
And the blessings of the poor
Wafting to the heavenly shore!
TO FREDRIKA BREMER.
Seeress of the misty Norland,
Daughter of the Vikings bold,
Welcome to the sunny Vineland,
Which thy fathers sought of old!
Soft as flow of Silja's waters,
When the moon of summer shines.
Strong as Winter from his mountains
Roaring through the sleeted pines.
Heart and ear, we long have listened
To thy saga, rune, and song,
As a household joy and presence
We have known and loved thee
long.
By the mansion^s marble mantel,
Round the log- walled cabin's heartli.
Thy sweet thoughts and northern
fancies
Meet and min^jle with our mirth.
And o^er weary spirits keeping
Sorrow's night-watch, long and
chill.
Shine they like thy sun of summer
Over midnight vale and hill.
We alone to thee are strangers.
Thou our friend and teacher art ;
Come, and know us as we know thee ;
Let us meet thee heart to heart!
To our homes and household altars
We, in turn, thy steps would lead.
As thy loving hand has led us
O'er the threshold of the Swede.
APRIL.
" The spring comes slowly up this way."
CliristabeL
'Tis the noon of the spring-time, yet
never a bird
In the wind-shaken elm or the maple
is heard ;
For green meadow-grasses wide levels
of snow.
And blowing of drifts where the cro-
cus should blow ;
Where wind-flower and violet, amber
and white,
On south-sloping brooksides should
smile in the light,
O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-
waking roots .
The frosty tiake eddies, the ice-crystal
shoots ;
And, longing for light, under wind-
driven heaps,
Round the boles of the pine-wood the
ground-laurel creeps,
Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized
of showers.
With buds scarcely swelled, which
should burst into flowers!
We wait for thy coming, sweet wind
of the south !
For the touch of thy light wings, the
kiss of thy mouth ;
For the yearly evangel thou bearest
from God,
Resurrection and life to the graves of
the sod !
Up our long river-valley, for days, have
not ceased
The wail and the shriek of the bitter
northeast, —
Raw and chill, as if winnowed through
ices and snow,
All the way from the land of the wild
Esquimau, —
Lhitil all our dreams of the land of tlie
blest.
Like that red hunter's, turn to the
sunnv southwest.
212
MISCELLANEOUS.
O soul of the spring-time, its light
and its breath,
Bring warmth to this coldness, bring
life to this death ;
Renew the great miracle ; let us be-
hold
The stone from the month of the
sepulchre rolled,
And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of
old!
Let our faith, which in darkness and
coldness has lain,
Revive with the warmth and the
brightness again,
And in blooming of flower and budding
of tree
The symbols and types of our destiny
see ;
The life of the spring-time, the hfe of
9 the whole.
And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love
to the soul !
STANZAS FOR THE TLAIES.
1850.
The evil days have come, — the poor
Are made a prey ;
Bar up the hospitable door,
Put out the fire-lights, point no more
The wanderer's way.
For Pity now is crime ; the chain
Which binds our States
Ls melted at her hearth in twain.
Is rusted by her tears' soft rain :
Close up her gates.
Our Union, like a glacier stirred
By voice below.
Or bell of kine, or wing of bird,
A beggars crust, a kindly word
May overthrow!
Poor, whispering tremblers ! -
boast
Our blood and name ;
- yet we
Bursting its century-bolted frost.
Each gray cairn on the Northman's
coast
Cries out for shame!
0 for the open firmament,
The prairie free.
The desert hillside, cavern-rent.
The Paw^nee's lodge, the Arab's tent,
The Bushman's tree!
Than web of Persian loom most rare,
Or soft divan.
Better the rough rock, bleak and bare,
Or hollow tree, which man may share
With suflfering man.
1 hear a voice : "Thus saith the Law,
Let Love be dumb ;
Clasping her liberal hands in awe,
Let sweet-lipped Charity withdraw
From hearth and home."
I hear another voice : " The poor
Are thine to feed ;
Turn not the outcast from thy door,
Nor give to bonds and wrong once
more
Whom God hath freed."
Dear Lord! between that law and
thee
No choice remains ;
Yet not untrue to man's decree,
Though spurning its rewards, is he
Who bears its pains.
Not mine Sedition's trumpet-blast
And threatening word ;
I read the lesson of the Past,
That firm endurance wins at last
More than the sword.
O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience, thou
So calm and strong!
Lend strength to weakness, teach us
how
The sleepless eyes of God look through
This nio[ht of wrono;!
A SABBATH SCENE.
213
A SABBATH SCENE.
Scarce had the solemn Sabbath-bell
Ceased quivering in the steeple,
Scarce had the parson to his desk
Walked stately through his people,
When down the summer-shaded street
A wasted female figure,
With dusky brow and naked feet,
Came rushing wild and eager.
She saw the white spire through the
trees,
She heard the sweet hymn swelling :
O pitying Christ ! a refuge give
That poor one in thy dwelling!
Like a scared fawn before the hounds,
Right up the aisle she glided.
While close behind her, whip in hand,
A lank-haired hunter strided.
She raised a keen and bitter cry,
To Heaven and Earth appeahng ; —
Were manhood's generous pulses
dead ?
Had woman's heart no feeling?
A score of stout hands rose between
The hunter and the flying :
Age clenched his staff, and maiden
eyes
Flashed tearful, yet defying.
"Who dares profane this house and
day?''
Cried out the angry pastor.
'' Why, bless your soul, the wench 's
a slave.
And 1 'm her lord and master!
'' I 've law and gospel on my side,
And who shall dare refuse me?"
Down came the parson, bowing low,
" My good sir, pray excuse me !
" Of course I know your right divine
To own and work and whip her ;
Quick, deacon, throw that Polyglott
Before the wench, and trip her!"
Plump dropped the holy tome, and o'er
Its sacred pages stumbling,
Bound hand and foot, a slave once
more.
The hapless wretch lay trembling.
I saw the parson tie the knots,
The while his flock addressing,
The Scriptural claims of slavery
With text on text impressing.
"Although," said he, "on Sabbath
day.
All secular occupations
Are deadly sins, we must fulfil
Our moral obligations :
"And this commends itself as one
To every conscience tender;
As Paul sent back Onesimus,
My Christian friends, we send her! "
Shriek rose on shriek, — the Sabbath
air
Her wild cries tore asunder ;
I listened, with hushed breath, to hear
God answering with his thunder!
All still! — the very altar's cloth
Had smothered down her shrieking.
And, dumb, she turned from face to
face,
For human pity seeking!
I saw her dragged along the aisle,
Her shackles harshly clanking ;
I heard the parson, over all.
The Lord devoutly thanking!
My brain took fire : " Is this," I cried,
" The end of prayer and preaching?
Then down with pulpit, down with
priest,
And give us Nature's teaching!
" Foul shame and scorn be on ye all
Who turn the good to evil,
214
MISCELLANEOUS.
And steal the Bible from the Lord,
To <AvG it to the Devil!
^'Than garbled text or parchment
law
I own a statute higher ;
And God is true, though every book
And every man 's a liar ! "
Just then I felt the deacon^s hand
In wrath my coat-tail seize on ;
I heard the priest cry, ^^ Infidel! "
The lawyer mutter, '' Treason!"
I started up, — where now were
church,
Slave, master, priest, and people ?
I only heard the supper-bell,
Instead of clanging steeple.
But, on the open window\s sill.
O'er which the white blooms
drifted.
The pages of a good old Book
The wind of summer lifted.
And flower and vine, like angel wings
Around the Holy Mother,
Waved softly there, as if God's truth
And Mercy kissed each other.
And freely from the cherry-bough
Above the casement swinging,
With golden bosom to the sun,
The oriole was singing.
As bird and flower made plain of old
The lesson of the Teacher,
So now I heard the written Word
Interpreted by Nature!
For to my ear methought the breeze
Bore Freedom's blessed word on ;
Thus saith the Lord: Break
every yoke,
Undo the heavy burden!
REMEMBRANCE.
WITH COPIES OF THE AUTHOR'S
WRITINGS.
Friend of mine! whose lot was cast
With me in the distant past, —
Where, Hke shadows flitting fast,
Fact and fancy, thought and theme,
Word and work, begin to seem
Like a half-remembered dream!
Touched by change have all things
been.
Yet I think of thee as when
We had speech of lip and pen.
For the calm thy kindness lent
To a path of discontent.
Rough with trial and dissent ;
Gentle words where such were few.
Softening blame where blame was true,
Praising where small praise was due ;
For a waking dream made good,
f^or an ideal understood.
For thy Christian womanhood ;
For thy marvellous gift to cull
From our common life and dull
Whatsoe'er is beautiful ;
Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees
Dropping sweetness ; true heart's-ease
Of congenial sympathies ; —
Still for these I own my debt ;
Memory, with her eyelids wet,
Fain would thank thee even yet !
And as one who scatters flowers
Where the Queen of May's sweet
hours
Sits, o'ertwined with blossomed
bowers,
KATHLEEN.
215
In superfluous zeal bestowing
Gifts where gifts are overflowing,
So I pay the debt I ^m owing.
To thy full thoughts, gay or sad,
Sunny-hued or sober clad,
Something of my own I add ;
Well assured that thou wilt take
Even the offering which I make
Kindly for the giver's sake.
THE POOR VOTER ON ELEC-
TION DAY.
The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high ;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am L
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known ;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand ;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor.
The weak is strong to-day ;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no
more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide ;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
To-day shall simple manhood try
The strength of gold and lana;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
While there 's a grief to seek redress.
Or balance to adjust.
Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon's vilest dust, —
While there 's a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away.
Up ! clouted knee and ragged coat !
A man 's a man to-day !
TRUST.
The same old baffling questions! O
my friend,
I cannot answer them. In vain I send
My soul into the dark, where never
burn
The lamps of science, nor the natu-
ral light
Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot
learn
Their great and solemn meanings, nor
discern
The awful secrets of the eyes which
turn
Evermore on us through the day
and night
With silent challenge and a dumb
demand,
Proffering the riddles of the dread un-
known.
Like the calm Sphinxes, with their
eyes of stone,
Questioning the centuries from their
veils of sand !
I have no answer for myself or thee.
Save that I learned beside my mother's
knee;
'^ All is of God that is, and is to be ;
And God is good." Let this suffice
us still,
Resting in childlike trust upon his
will
Who moves to his great ends un-
thwarted by the ill.
KATHLEEN.
O NORAH, lay your basket down.
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.
2l6
MISCELLANEOUS.
There was a lord of Galaway,
A mighty lord was he ;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.
Rut he was old, and she was young.
And so. in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.
She whipped the maids and starved
the kern,
And drove away the poor ;
" Ah, woe is me ! " the old lord said,
^' I rue my bargain sore! "
This lord he had a daughter fair,
Beloved of old and young,
And nightly round the shealing-fires
Of her the gleeman sung.
" As sweet and good is young Kathleen
As Eve before her fall '*' ;
So sang the harper at the fair,
So harped he in the hall.
^' O come to me, my daughter dear!
Come sit upon my knee,
For looking in your face, Kathleen,
Your mother's own I see ! "
He smoothed and smoothed her hair
away,
He kissed her forehead fair ;
^' It is my darling Mary's brow,
It is my darling's hair ! "
O, then spake up the angry dame,
'' Get up, get up,*' quoth she,
" I '11 sell ye over Ireland,
I '11 sell ye o'er the sea! "
She clipped her glossy hair away,
That none her rank might know.
She took away her gown of silk,
And gave her one of tow,
And sent her down to Limerick town.
And to a seaman sold
This daughter of an Irish lord
For ten good pounds in gold.
The lord he smote upon his breast,
And tore his beard so gray ;
But he was old, and she was young,
And so she had her way.
Sure that same night the Banshee
howled
To fright the evil dame,
And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen,
With funeral torches came.
She watched them glancing through
the trees.
And glimmering down the hill ;
They crept before the dead-vault door,
And there they all stood still !
" Get up, old man! the wake-lights
shine ! "
" Ye murthering witch," quoth he,
" So I 'm rid of your tongue, I little
care
If they shine for you or me.
^^ O, whoso brings my daughter back,
My gold and land shall have! "
O, then spake up his handsome page,
" No gold nor land I crave !
" But give to me your daughter dear.
Give sweet Kathleen to me.
Be she on sea or be she on land,
I *11 bring her back to thee."
" My daughter is a lady born.
And you of low degree,
But she shall be your bride the day
You bring her back to me."
He sailed east, he sailed west,
And far and long sailed he.
Until he came to Boston town.
Across the great salt sea.
'' O, have ye seen the young Kathleen,
The flower of Ireland.'*
FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS.
217
Ye '11 know her by her eyes so blue,
And by her snow-white hand!"
Out spake an ancient man, ^^ I know
The maiden whom ye mean ;
I bought her of a Limerick man,
And she is called Kathleen.
" No skill hath she in household work,
Her hands are soft and white,
Yet well by loving looks and ways
She doth her cost requite.''
So up they walked through Boston
town,
And met a maiden fair,
A little basket on her arm
So snowy-white and bare.
"Come hither, child, and say hast
thou
This young man ever seen? "
They wept within each other's arms.
The page and young Kathleen.
" O give to me this darUng child.
And take my purse of gold."
" Nay, not by me," her master said,
" Shall sweet Kathleen be sold.
" We loved her in the place of one
The Lord hath early ta'en ;
But, since her heart 's in Ireland,
We give her back again! "
O, for that same the saints in heaven
For his poor soul shall pray,
And Mary Mother wash with tears
His heresies away.
Sure now they dwell in Ireland,
As you go up Claremore
Ye '11 see their castle looking down
The pleasant Gal way shore.
And the old lord's wife is dead and
gone.
And a happy man is he,
For he sits beside his own Kathleen,
With her darlin<j[ on his knee.
FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS.
In calm and cool and silence, once
again
I find my old accustomed place
among
My bretliren, where, perchance, no
human tongue
Shall utter words ; where never
hymn is sung,
Nor deep toned organ blown, nor
censer swung,
Nor dim hght falling through the pic-
tured pane!
There, syllabled by silence, let me
hear
The still small voice which reached
the prophet's ear ;
Read in my heart a still diviner
law
Than Israel's leader on his tables
saw!
There let me strive with each beset-
ting sin.
Recall my wandering fancies, and
restrain
The sore disquiet of a restless
brain ;
And, as the path of duty is made
plain.
May grace be given that I may walk
therein.
Not like the hireling, for his selfish
gain.
With backward glances and reluctant
tread.
Making a merit of his coward dread, —
But, cheerful, in the light around
me thrown.
Walking as one to pleasant service
led;
Doing God's will as if it were my
own,
Yet trusting not in mine, but in his
streno:th alone !
2l8
MISCELLANEOUS.
KOSSUTH.
Type of two mighty continents! —
combining
The strength of Europe with the
warmth and glow
Of Asian song and prophecy, — the
shining
Of Orient splendors over Northern
snow!
Who shall receive him? Who, un-
blushing, speak
Welcome to him, who, while he strove
to break
The Austrian yoke from Magyar
necks, smote off
At the same blow the fetters of the
serf, —
Rearing the altar of his Father-land
On the firm base of freedom, and
thereby
Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless
hand,
Mocked not the God of Justice with
a lie!
Who shall be Freedom's mouth-piece?
Who shall give
Her welcoming cheer to the great
fugitive ?
Not he who, all her sacred trusts be-
traying,
Is scourging back to slavery's hell
of pain
The swarthy Kossuths of our land
again!
Not he whose utterance now from lips
designed
The bugle-march of Liberty to
wind,
And call her hosts beneath the break-
ing light, —
The keen reveille of her morn of
fight, -
Is but the hoarse note of the blood-
hound's baying,
The wolfs long howl behind the bond-
man's flight !
O for the tongue of him who lies at
rest
In Quincy's shade of patrimonial
trees, —
Last of the Puritan tribunes and the
best, —
To lend a voice to Freedom's sym-
pathies.
And hail the coming of the noblest
guest
The Old World's wrong has given the
New World of the West !
TO MY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.
AN EPISTLE NOT AFTER THE MAN-
NER OF HORACE.
Old friend, kind friend ! lightly down
Drop time's snow-flakes on thy crown !
Never be thy shadow less.
Never fail thy cheerfulness ;
Care, that kills the cat, may plough
Wrinkles in the miser's brow,
Deepen envy's spiteful frown,
Draw the mouths of bigots down,
Plague ambition's dream, and sit
Heavy on the hypocrite.
Haunt the rich man's door, and ride
In the gilded coach of pride; —
Let the fiend pass! — what can he
Find to do with such as thee?
Seldom comes that evil guest
Where the conscience lies at rest,
And brown health and quiet wit
Smiling on the threshold sit.
I, the urchin unto whom.
In that smoked and dingy room.
Where the district gave thee rule
O'er its ragged winter school.
Thou didst teach the mysteries
Of those weary A B C's, —
Where, to fill the every pause
Of thy wise and learned saws.
Through the cracked and crazy wall
Came the cradle-rock and squall.
And the goodman's voice, at strife
With his shrill and tipsy wife, —
Luring us by stories old.
With a comic unction told,
TO iMY OLD SCHOOLMASTER.
219
More than by the eloquence
Of terse birchen arguments .
(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look
With complacence on a book ! —
Where the genial pedagogue
Half forgot his rogues to fiog,
Citing tale or apologue.
Wise and merry in its drift
As old Phx^drus' twofold gift.
Had the little rebels known it,
Risiini et prudentiain inonetl
1, — the man of middle years.
In whose sable locks appears
Many a warning fleck of gray, —
Looking back to that far day.
And thy primal lessons, feel
Grateful smiles my lips unseal,
As, remembering thee, I blend
Olden teacher, present friend.
Wise with antiquarian search.
In the scrolls of State and Church ;
Named on history's title-page.
Parish-clerk and justice sage ;
For the ferule's wholesome awe
Wielding now the sword of law.
Threshing Time's neglected sheaves,
Gathering up the scattered leaves
Which the wrinkled sibyl cast
Careless from her as she passed, —
Twofold citizen art thou.
Freeman of the past and now.
He who bore thy name of old
Midway in the heavens did hold
Over Gibeon moon and sun ;
Thoic hast bidden them backward run ;
Of to-day the present ray
Flinging over yesterday!
Let the busy ones deride
What I deem of right thy pride ;
Let the fools their tread-mills grind.
Look not forward nor behind.
Shuffle in and wriggle out.
Veer with every breeze about,
Turning like a windmill sail.
Or a dog that seeks his tail ;
Let them laugh to see thee fast
Tabernacled in the Past,
Working out with eye and lip,
Riddles of old penmanship,
Patient as Belzoni there
Sorting out, with loving care,
Mummies of dead questions stripped
From their sevenfold manuscript!
Dabbling, in their noisy way.
In the puddles of to-day.
Little know they of that vast
Solemn ocean of the past,
On whose margin, wreck-bespread,
Thou art walking with the dead.
Questioning the stranded years.
Waking smiles, by turns, and tears.
As thou callest up again
Shapes the dust has long o'erlain, —
Fair-haired woman, bearded man,
Cavalier and Puritan ;
In an age whose eager view
Seeks but present things, and new,
Mad for party, sect, and gold.
Teaching reverence for the old.
On that shore, with fowlers tact,
Coolly bagging fact on fact.
Naught amiss to thee can float.
Tale, or song, or anecdote ;
Village gossip, centuries old,
Scandals by our grandams told.
What the pilgrim's table spread.
Where he lived, and whom he wed,
Long-drawn bill of wine and beer
For his ordination cheer.
Or the flip that wellnigh made
Glad his funeral cavalcade ;
Weary prose, and poet's lines.
Flavored by their age, like wines.
Eulogistic of some quaint.
Doubtful, puritanic saint ;
Lays that quickened husking jigs,
Jests that shook grave ptriwigs.
When the parson had his jokes
And his glass, like other folks ;
Sermons that, for mortal hours.
Taxed our fathers' vital powers.
As the long nineteenthlies poured
Downward from the sounding-board.
And, for fire of Pentecost,
Touched their beards December's
frost.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Time is hastening on, and we
What our fathers are shall be, —
Shadow-shapes of memory!
Joined to that vast multitude
Where the great are but the good,
And the mind of strength shall
prove
Weaker than the heart of love ;
Pride of graybear.d wisdom less
Than the inf^int's guilelessness,
And his song of sorrow more
Than the crown the Psalmist wore!
Who shall then, with pious zeal,
At our moss-grown thresholds kneel,
From a stained and stony page
Reading to a careless age,
With a patient eye like thine.
Prosing tale and limping line.
Names and words the hoary rime
Of the Past has made sublime?
Who shall work for us as well
The antiquarian's miracle?
Who to seeming life recall
Teacher grave and pupil small ?
Who shall give to thee and me
Freeholds in futurity?
Well, whatever lot be mine.
Long and happy days be thine,
Ere thy full and honored age
Dates of time its latest page!
Squire for master. State for school.
Wisely lenient, live and rule ;
Over grown-up knave and rogue
Play the watchful pedagogue ;
Or, while pleasure smiles on duty.
At the call of youth and beauty,
Speak for them the spell of law
Which shall bar and bolt withdraw,
And the flaming sword remove
From the Paradise of Love
Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore
Ancient tome and record o'er ;
Still thy week-day lyrics croon.
Pitch in church the Sunday tune,
Showing something, in thy part,
Of the old Puritanic art.
Singer after Sternhold's heart!
In thy pew, for many a year.
Homilies from Oldbug hear.
Who to wit like that of South,
And the Syrian's golden mouth,
Doth the homely pathos add
Which the pilgrim preachers had ;
Breaking, like a child at play,
Gilded idols of the day.
Cant of knave and pomp of fool
Tossing with his ridicule,
Yet, in earnest or in jest.
Ever keeping truth abreast.
And, when thou art called, at last.
To thy townsmen of the past.
Not as stranger shalt thou come ;
Thou shalt find thyself at home!
With the little and the big,
Woollen cap and periwig.
Madam in her high-laced ruff.
Goody in her home-made stuff, —
Wise and simple, rich and poor.
Thou hast known them all before!
THE PANORAMA.
THE PANORAMA, AND OTHER POEMS, 1856,
" A ! fredome is a nobill thing!
Fredome mayse man to haif liking.
Fredome all solace to man giffis ;
He levys at ese that frely levys!
A nobil hart may haif nane ese
Na ellys nocht that may him plese
Gyff Fredome failythe.^'
Archdeacon Barbour.
Through the long hall the shut-
tered windows shed
A dubious light on every upturned
head, —
On locks like those of Absalom the
fair,
On the bald apex ringed -with scanty
hair,
On blank indilTerence and on curious
stare ;
On the pale Showman reading from
his stage
The hieroglyphics of that facial
page ;
Half sad, half scornful, listening to the
bruit
Of restless cane-tap and impatient
foot,
And the shrill call, across the general
din,
" Roll up your curtain ! Let the show
begin ! ''
At length a murmur like the winds
that break
Into green waves the prairie^s grassy
lake.
Deepened and swelled to music clear
and loud,
And, as the west-wind lifts a summer
cloud.
The curtain rose, disclosing wide and
far
A green land stretching to the evening
star.
Fair rivers, skirted by primeval trees
And flowers hummed over by the des-
ert bees,
Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of
greenness show
Fantastic outcrops of the rock be-
low, —
The slow result of patient Nature's
pains.
And plastic fingering of her sun and
rains, —
Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely
windowed hall,
And long escarpment of half-crumbled
wall,
Huger than those which, from steep
hills of vine.
Stare through their loopholes on the
travelled Rhine ;
Suggesting vaguely to the gazer^s
mind
A fancy, idle as the prairie wind,
Of the land's dwellers in an age un-
guessed, —
The unsung Jotuns of the mystic
West.
Beyond, the prairie's sea-like swells
surpass
The Tartar's marvels of his Land of
Grass,
Vast as the sky against w^iose sunset
shores
Wave after wave the billowy green-
ness pours ;
And, onward still, like islands in that
main
TFIE PANORAMA.
Loom the rough peaks of many a
mountain chain,
Whence east and west a thousand
waters run
From winter hngering under summer's
sun.
And, still beyond, long lines of foam
and sand
Tell where Pacific rolls his waves
a-land,
From many a wide-lapped port and
land-locked bay,
Opening with thunderous pomp the
world's highway
To Indian isles of spice, and marts of
far Cathay.
" Such,'' said the Showman, as the
curtain fell,
" Is the new Canaan of our Israel, —
The land of promise to the swarming
North,
Which, hive-like, sends its annual sur-
plus forth,
To the poor Southron on his worn-out
soil.
Scathed by the curses of unnatural
toil;
To Europe's exiles seeking home and
rest.
And the lank nomads of the wander-
ing west.
Who, asking neither, in their love of
change
And the free bison's amplitude of
range.
Rear the log hut, for present shelter
meant,
Not future comfort, like an Arab's
tent."
Then spake a shrewd on-looker,
" Sir," said he,
" I like your picture, but I fain would
see
A sketch of what your promised land
will be
When, with electric nerve, and fiery-
brained,
With Nature's forces to its chariot
chained.
The future grasping by the past
obeyed.
The twentieth century rounds a new
decade."
Then said the Showman, sadly :
'^ He who grieves
Over the scattering of the sibyl's
leaves
Unwisely mourns. Suffice it, that we
know
What needs must ripen from the seed
we sow ;
That present time is but the mould
wherein
We cast the shapes of holiness and sin.
A painful watcher of the passing
hour,
Its lust of gold, its strife for place and
power ;
Its lack of manhood, honor, reverence,
truth,
Wise-thoughted age, and generous-
hearted youth ;
Nor yet unmindful of each better
sign,—
The low, far lights, which on th' hori-
zon shine.
Like those which sometimes tremble
on the rim
Of clouded skies when day is closing
dim.
Flashing athwart the purple spears of
rain
The hope of sunshine on the hills
again : —
I need no prophet's word, nor shapes
that pass
Like clouding shadows o'er a magic
glass ;
For now, as ever, passionless and
cold,
Doth the dread angel of the future
hold
Evil and good before us, with no
voice
Or warning look to guide us in our
choice ;
THE PANORAMA.
223
I
With spectral hands outreaching
through the gloom
The shadowy contrasts of the coming
doom.
Transferred from these, it now remains
to give
The sun and shade of Fate's alterna-
tive."
Then, with a burst of music, touch-
ing all
The keys of thrifty life, — the mill-
stream ^s fall.
The engine's pant along its quivering
rails,
The anviPs ring, the measured beat of
flails.
The sweep of scythes, the reaper's
whistled tune,
Answering the summons of the bells
of noon,
The woodman's hail along the river
shores.
The steamboat's signal, and the dip of
oars, —
Slowly the curtain rose from off a land
Fair as God's garden. Broad on
either hand
The golden wheat-fields glimmered in
the sun.
And the tall maize its yellow tassels
spun.
Smooth highways set with hedge-
rows living green,
With steepled towns through shaded
vistas seen.
The school-house murmuring with its
hive-like swarm.
The brook-bank whitening in the
grist-mill's storm.
The painted farm-house shining
through the leaves
Of fruited orchards bending at its
eaves.
Where live again, around the West-
ern hearth,
The homely old-time virtues of the
North ;
Where the blithe housewife rises with
the day,
And well-paid labor counts his task a
play.
And, grateful tokens of a Bible
free.
And the free Gospel of Humanity,
Of diverse sects and differing names
the shrines,
One in their faith, whate'er their out-
ward signs,
Like varying strophes of the same
sweet hymn
From many a prairie's swell and
rivers brim,
A thousand church-spires sanctify the
air
Of the calm Sabbath, with their sign
of prayer.
Like sudden nightfall over bloom
and green
The curtain dropped : and, momently,
between
The clank of fetter and the crack of
thong,
Half sob, half laughter, music swept
along, —
A strange refrain, whose idle words
and low,
Like drunken mourners, kept the time
of woe ;
As if the revellers at a masquer-
ade
Heard in the distance funeral marches
played.
Such music, dashing all his smiles
with tears.
The thoughtful voyager on Ponchar-
train hears.
Where, through the noonday dusk of
wooded shores
The negro boatman, singing to his
oars.
With a wild pathos borrowed of his
wrong
Redeems the jargon of his senseless
song.
^"Look," said the Showman, sternly,
as he rolled
His curtain upward ; *^ Fate's reverse
behold!"
224
THE PANORAMA.
A village straggling in loose dis-
There, early summoned to the hemp
array
and corn,
Of vulgar newness, premature decay ;
The nursing mother leaves her child
A tavern, crazy with its whiskey
new-born ;
brawls.
There haggard sickness, weak and
With '' Slaves at Atcction ! " garnish-
deathly faint.
ing its walls.
Crawls to his task, and fears to make
Without, surrounded by a motley
complaint ;
crowd.
And sad-eyed Rachels, childless in
The shrewd-eyed salesman, garrulous
decay.
and loud.
Weep for their lost ones sold and torn
A squire or colonel in his pride of
away !
place.
Of ampler size the master's dwelling
Known at free fights, the caucus, and
stands.
the race.
In shabby keeping with his half-tilled
Prompt to proclaim his honor without
lands, —
blot.
The gates unhinged, the yard with
And silence doubters with a ten-pace
weeds unclean.
shot.
The cracked veranda with a tipsy
Mingling the negro-driving bully's
lean.
rant
Without, loose-scattered like a wreck
With pious phrase and democratic
adrift.
cant.
Signs of misrule and tokens of un-
Yet never scrupling, with a filthy jest.
thrift ;
To sell the infant from its mother's
Within, profusion to discomfort
breast,
joined.
Break through all ties of wedlock.
The listless body and the vacant mind ;
home, and kin,
The fear, the hate, the theft and
Yield shrinkino^ p^irlhood up to gray-
falsehood, born
beard sin ;
In menial hearts of toil, and stripes,
Sell all the virtues with his human
and scorn !
stock,
There, all the vices, which, like birds
The Christian graces on his auction-
obscene.
block,
Batten on slavery loathsome and
And coolly count on shrewdest bar-
unclean,
gains driven
From the foul kitchen to the parlor
In hearts regenerate, and in souls for-
rise,
given!
Pollute the nursery where the child-
heir lies,
Look once again! The moving
Taint infant lips beyond all after cure,
canvas shows
With the fell poison of a breast im-
A slave plantation's slovenly repose,
pure ;
Where, in rude cabins rotting midst
Touch boyhood's passions with the
their weeds.
breath of flame.
The human chattel eats, and sleeps.
From girlhood's instincts steal the
and breeds ;
blush of shame.
And, held a brute, in practice, as in
So swells, from low to high, from
law.
weak to strong,
Becomes in fact the thing he's taken
The tragic chorus of the baleful
for.
wrong ;
THE PANORAMA.
225
Guilty, or guiltless, all within its
range
Feel the blind justice of its sure
revenge.
Still scenes like these the moving
chart reveals.
Up the long western steppes the
blighting steals ;
Down the Pacific slope the evil Fate
Glides like a shadow to the Golden
Gate :
From sea to sea the drear eclipse is
thrown,
From sea to sea the Mairuaises Terres
have grown,
A belt of curses on the New World's
zone!
The curtain fell. All drew a freer
breath.
As men are wont to do when mourn-
ful death
Is covered from their sight. The
Showman stood
With drooping brow in sorrow's atti-
tude
One moment, then \yith sudden ges-
ture shook
His loose hair back, and with the air
and look
Of one who felt, beyond the narrow-
stage
And listening group, the presence of
the age.
And heard the footsteps of the things
to be.
Poured out his soul in earnest words
and free.
" O friends ! " he said, ^^ in this poor
trick of paint
You see the semblance, incomplete
and faint.
Of the two-fronted Future, which, to-
day,
Stands dim and silent, waiting in
your way.
To-day, your servant, subject to your
will ;
Q
To-morrow, master, or for good or ill.
If the dark face of Slavery on you
turns.
If the mad curse its paper barrier
spurns.
If the world granary of the West is
made
The last foul market of the slaver's
trade.
Why rail at fate? The mischief is
your own.
Why hate your neighbor? Blame
yourselves alone!
"Men of the North! The South
you charge with wrong
Is weak and poor, while you are rich
and strong.
If questions, — idle and absurd as
those
The old-time monks and Paduan doc-
tors chose, —
Mere ghosts of questions, tariffs, and
dead banks.
And scarecrow pontiffs, never broke
your ranks,
Your thews united could, at once, roll
back
The jostled nation to its primal track.
Nay, were you simply steadfast, manly,
just.
True to the faith your fathers left in
trust.
If stainless honor outweighed in your
scale
A codfish quintal or a factory bale,
Full many a noble heart, (and such
remain
In all the South, like Lot in Siddim's
plain.
Who watch and wait, and from the
wrong's control
Keep white and pure their chastity of
soul,)
Now sick to loathing of your w^eak
complaints.
Your tricks as sinners, and your prayers
as saints,
Would half-way meet the frankness of
your tone,
226
THE PANORAMA.
And feel their pulses beating with your
Then, if one murmur mais the wide
own.
content.
Some Northern lip mil drawl the last
^^The North! the South! no geo-
dissent.
graphic hue
Some Union-saving patriot of your
Can fix the boundary or the point
own
define,
Lament to find his occupation gone.
Since each with each so .closely inter-
blends,
" Grant that the North 's insulted.
Where Slavery rises, and where Free-
scorned, betrayed.
dom ends.
O'erreached in bargains with her
Beneath your rocks the roots, far-
neighbor made.
reaching, hide
When selfish thrift and party held the
Of the fell Upas on the Southern side ;
scales
The tree whose branches in your north
For peddling dicker, not for honest
winds wave
sales, —
Dropped its young blossoms on Mount
Whom shall we strike? Who most
Vernon's grave ;
deserves our blame?
The nursling growth of Monticello's
The braggart Southron, open in his
crest
aim.
Is now the glory of the free North-
And bold as wicked, crashing straight
west ;
through all
To the wise maxims of her olden
That bars his purpose, like a cannon-
school
ball?
Virginia listened from thy lips, Ran-
Or the mean traitor, breathing north-
toul;
ern air.
Seward's words of power, and Sum-
With nasal speech and puritanic hair.
ner's fresh renown,
Whose cant the loss of principle sur-
Flow from the pen that Jefferson laid
vives,
down !
As the mud-turtle e'en its head out-
And when, at length, her years of
lives ;
madness o'er.
Who, caught, chin-buried in some
Like the crowned grazer on Euphrates'
foul offence,
shore.
Puts on a look of injured innocence.
From her long lapse to savagery, her
And consecrates his baseness to the
mouth
cause
Bitter with baneful herbage, turns the
South,
Resumes her old attire, and seeks to
Of constitution, union, and the laws?
" Praise to the place-man who can
smooth
hold aloof
Her unkempt tresses at the glass of
His still unpurchased manhood, office-
truth.
proof;
Her early faith shall find a tongue
Who on his round of duty walks erect.
again,
And leaves it only rich in self-respect, —
New Wythes and Pinckneys swell that
As More maintained his virtue's lofty
old refrain,
port
Her sons with yours renew the ancient
In the Eighth Henry's base and bloody
pact,
court.
The mvth of Union prove at last a
But, if exceptions here and there are
fact!
found,
THE PANORAMA.
227
t
Who tread thus safely on enchanted
ground,
The normal type, the fitting symbol
still
Of those who fatten at the public
mill,
Is the chained dog beside his master's
door,
Or Circe's victim, feeding on all four!
" Give me the heroes who, at tuck
of drum,
Salute thy staff, immortal Quattlebum !
Or they who, doubly armed with vote
and gun,
Following thy lead, illustrious Atchi-
son,
Their drunken franchise shift from
scene to scene.
As tile-beard Jourdan did his guillo-
tine!—
Rather than him who, born beneath
our skies,
To Slavery's hand its supplest tool
supplies, —
The party felon whose unblushing face
Looks from the pillory of his brilje of
place.
And coolly makes a merit of dis-
grace, —
Points to the footmarks of indignant
scorn,
Shows the deep scars of satire's toss-
ing horn ;
And passes to his credit side the sum
Of all that makes a scoundrel's martyr-
dom!
" Bane of the North, its canker and
its moth ! —
These modern Esaus, bartering rights
for broth !
Taxing our justice, with their double
claim.
As fools for pity, and as knaves for
blame ;
Who, urged by party, sect, or trade,
wdthin
The fell embrace of Slavery's sphere
of sin.
Part at the outset with their moral
sense.
The watchful angel set for Truth's
defence ;
Confound all contrasts, good and ill ;
reverse
The poles of life, its blessing and its
curse ;
And lose thenceforth from their per-
verted sight
The eternal diiTerence 'twixt the wrong
and right ;
To them the Law is but the iron span
That girds the ankles of imbruted
man ;
To them the Gospel has no higher aim
Than simple sanction of the master's
claim.
Dragged in the slime of Slavery's
loathsome trail.
Like Chalier's Bible at his ass's tail!
^' Such are the men who, with in-
stinctive dread,
W^henever Freedom lifts her drooping
head.
Make prophet-tripods of their office-
stools.
And scare the nurseries and the village
schools
With dire presage of ruin grim and
great,
A broken Union and a foundered
State !
Such are the patriots, self-bound to
the stake
Of office, martyrs for their country's
sake:
Who fill themselves the hungry jaws
of Fate,
And by their loss of manhood save
the State.
In the wide gulf themselves like Cur-
tius throw.
And test the virtues of cohesive
dough ;
As tropic monkeys, linking heads and
tails,
Bridge o'er some torrent of Ecuador's
vales !
228
THE PANORAMA.
^* Such are the men who in your
churches rave
To swearing-point, at mention of the
slave,
When some poor parson, haply un-
awares.
Stammers of freedom in his timid
prayers ;
Who, if some foot-sore negro through
the town
Steals northward, volunteer to hunt
him down.
Or, if some neighbor, flying from dis-
ease,
Courts the mild balsam of the Southern
breeze.
With hue and cry pursue him on his
track.
And write Free-soilcr on the poor
man's back.
Such are the men who leave the ped-
ler's cart,
While faring South, to learn the driver's
art.
Or, in white neckcloth, soothe with
pious aim
The graceful sorrows of some languid
dame.
Who, from the wreck of her bereave-
ment, saves
The double charm of widowhood and
slaves ! —
Pliant and apt, they lose no chance to
show
To what base depths apostasy can go ;
Outdo the natives in their readiness
To roast a negro, or to mob a press ;
Poise a tarred schoolmate on the
lyncher's rail,
Or make a bonfire of their birthplace
mail !
" So some poor wretch, whose lips
no longer bear
The sacred burden of his mother's
prayer.
By fear impelled, or lust of gold en-
ticed.
Turns to the Crescent from the Cross
of Christ,
And, over-acting in superfluous zeal,
Crawls prostrate where the faithful
only kneel.
Out-howls the Dervish, hugs his rags
to court
The squalid Santon's sanctity of dirt ;
And, when beneath the city gateway's
span
Files slow and long the Meccan cara-
van.
And through its midst, pursued by
Islam's prayers.
The prophet's Word some favored
camel bears.
The marked apostate has his place
assigned
The Koran-bearer's sacred rump be-
hind.
With brush and pitcher following,
grave and mute.
In meek attendance on the holy
brute!
"Men of the North! beneath your
very eyes,
By hearth and home, your real danger
lies.
Still day by day some hold of freedom
falls.
Through home-bred traitors fed within
its walls. —
Men whom yourselves with vote and
purse sustain,
At posts of honor, influence, and
gain ;
The right of Slavery to your sons to
teach,
And " South-side " Gospels in your
pulpits preach,
Transfix the Law to ancient freedom
dear
On the sharp point of her subverted
spear.
And imitate upon her cushion plump
The mad Missourian lynching from
his stump ;
Or, in your name, upon the Senate's
floor
Yield up to Slavery all it asks, and
more :
THE PANORAMA.
229
' And, ere your dull eyes open to tlie
cheat,
Sell your old homestead underneath
your feet !
While such as these your loftiest out-
looks hold,
While truth and conscience with your
wares are sold,
While grave-browed merchants band
themselves to aid
An annual man-hunt for their Southern
trade.
What moral power within your grasp
remains
To stay the mischief on Nebraska's
plains ? —
High as the tides of generous impulse
flow,
As far rolls back the selfish undertow :
And all your brave resolves, though
aimed as true
As the horse-pistol Balmawdiapple
drew,
To Slavery's bastions lend as slight a
shock
As the poor trooper's shot to Stirling
rock!
tn<^; ^' Yet, while the need of Freedom's
cause demands
The earnest efforts of your hearts and
hands.
Urged by all motives that can prompt
the heart
To prayer and toil and manhood's
manliest part ;
Though to the soul's deep tocsin
Nature joins
The warning whisper of her Orphic
pines.
The north-wind's anger, and the south-
wind's sigh.
The midnight sword-dance of the
northern sky.
And, to the ear that bends above the
sod
Of the green grave-mounds in the
Fields of God,
In lows deep murmurs of rebuke or
cheer,
The land's dead fathers speak their
hope or fear.
Yet let not Passion wrest from Rea-
son's hand
The guiding rein and symbol of com-
mand.
Blame not the caution proffering to
your zeal
A well-meant drag upon its hurrying
wheel ;
Nor chide the man whose honest doubt
extends
To the means only, not the righteous
ends ;
Nor fail to w^eigh the scruples and the
fears
Of milder natures and serener years.
In the long strife with evil which
began
With the first lapse of new-created
man.
Wisely and well has Providence as-
signed
To each his part, — some forward,
some behind ;
And they, too, serve who temper and
restrain
The o'erwarm heart that sets on fire
the brain.
True to yourselves, feed Freedom's
altar-flame
With what you have ; let others do
the same.
Spare timid doubters ; set like flint
your face
Against the self-sold knaves of gain
and place :
Pity the w^eak ; but with unsparing
hand
Cast out the traitors who infest the
land, —
From bar, press, pulpit, cast them
everywhere,
By dint of fasting, if you fail by prayer.
And in their place bring men of an-
tique mould.
Like the grave fathers of your Age of
Gold,—
Statesmen like those who sought the
primal fount
230
THE PANORAMA.
Of righteous law, the Sermon on the
Mount ;
Lawyers who prize, like Quincy, (to
our day
Still spared, Heaven bless him!)
honor more than pay.
And Christian jurists, starry-pure, like
Jay;
Preachers like Woolman, or like them
who bore
The faith of Wesley to our Western
shore.
And held no convert genuine till he
broke
Alike his servants' and the DeviPs
yoke ;
And priests like him who Newport's
market trod,
And o'er its slave-ships shook the
bolts of God!
So shall your power, with a wise pru-
dence used,
Strong but forbearing, firm but not
abused,
In kindly keeping with the good of
all,
The nobler maxims of the past re-
call,
Her natural home-born right to Free-
dom give,
And leave her foe his robber-right, —
to live.
Live, as the snake does in his noisome
fen!
Live, as the wolf does in his bone-
strewn den!
Live, clothed with cursing like a robe
of flame,
The focal point of million-fingered
shame !
Live, till the Southron, who, with all
his faults.
Has manly instincts, in his pride re-
volts.
Dashes from off him, midst the glad
world's cheers,
The hideous nightmare of his dream
of years.
And lifts, self-prompted, with his own
right hand,
The vile encumbrance from his glo-
rious land!
'^ So, wheresoever our destiny sends I
forth 1
Its widening circles to the South or
North,
Where'er our banner flaunts beneath
the stars
Its mimic splendors and its cloudlike
bars,
There shall Free Labor's hardy chil-
dren stand
The equal sovereigns of a slaveless
land.
And when at last the hunted bison
tires,
And dies overtaken by the squatter's
fires ;
And westward, wave on wave, the
living flood
Breaks on the snow-line of majestic
Hood ;
And lonely Shasta listening hears the
tread
Of Europe's fair-haired children, Hes-
per-led ;
And, gazing downward through his
hoar-locks, sees
The tawny Asian climb his giant
knees.
The Eastern sea shall hush his waves
to hear
Pacific's surf-beat answer Freedom's
cheer.
And one long rolling fire of triumph
run
Between the sunrise and the sunset
gun!"
My task is done. The Showman
and his show,
Themselves but shadows, into shad-
ows go ;
And, if no song of id! esse I have
sung,
Nor tints of beauty on the canvas
flung,—
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE.
231
If the harsh numbers grate on tender
ears,
And the rough picture overwrought
appears, —
With deeper coloring, with a sterner
blast,
Before my soul a voice and vision
passed,
Such as might Milton^s jarring trump
require,
Or glooms of Dante fringed with lurid
fire.
O, not of choice, for themes of public
wrong
I leave the green and pleasant paths
of song, —
The mild, sweet words which soften
and adorn.
For griding taunt and bitter laugh of
scorn.
More dear to me some song of private
worth,
Some homely idyl of my native
North,
Some summer pastoral of her inland
vales
And sea-brown hamlets, through
whose misty gales
Flit the dim ghosts of unreturning
sails, —
Lost barks at parting hung from stem
to helm
With prayers of love like dreams on
VirgiFs elm ;
Nor private grief nor malice hold my
pen;
I owe but kindness to my fellow-men.
And, South or North, wherever hearts
of prayer
Their woes and weakness to our
Father bear.
Wherever fruits of Christian love are
found
In holy lives, to me is holy ground.
But the time passes. It were vain to
crave
A late indulgence. What I had I
gave.
Forget the poet, but his warning
heed.
And shame his poor word with your
nobler deed.
MISCELLANEOUS.
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE.
I. NOON.
White clouds, whose shadows haunt
the deep.
Light mists, whose soft embraces
keep
The sunshine on the hills asleep!
O isles of calm ! — O dark, still wood !
And stiller skies that overbrood
Your rest with deeper quietude !
O sliapes and hues, dim beckoning,
through
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view
Beyond the purple and the blue.
To stiller sea and greener land,
And softer lights and airs more bland,
And skies, — the hollow of God's
hand!
Transfused through you, O mountain
friends !
With mine your solemn spirit blends,
And life no more hath separate ends.
I read each misty mountain sign,
I know the voice of wave and pine.
And I am yours, and ye are mine.
Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,
I lapse into the glad release
Of nature's own exceeding peace.
232
MISCELLANEOUS.
O, welcome calm of heart and mind!
As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind
To leave a tenderer growth behind,
So fall the weary years away ;
A child again, my head I lay
Upon the lap of this sweet day.
This western wind hath Lethean
powers,
Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers,
The lake is white with lotus-flowers !
Even Duty's voice is faint and low.
And slumberous Conscience, waking
slow.
Forgets her blotted scroll to show.
The Shadow w^hich pursues us all,
Whose ever-nearing steps appall.
Whose voice we hear behind us call, —
That Shadow blends with mountain
gray,
It speaks but what the light waves
say, —
Death walks apart from Fear to-day !
Rocked on her breast, these pines
and I
Alike on Nature's love rely ;
And equal seems to Hve or die.
Assured that He whose presence fills
With light the spaces of these hills
No evil to his creatures wills.
The simple faith remains, that He
Will do, whatever that may be.
The best alike for man and tree.
What mosses over one shall grow.
What light and life the other know,
Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
II. EVENING.
Yon mountain's side is black with
night,
While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleam-
ing crown
The moon, slow-rounding into sight.
On the hushed inland sea looks
down.
How start to light the clustering isles,
Each silver-hemmed! How sharply
show
The shadows of their rocky piles.
And tree-tops in the wave below!
How far and strange the mountains
seem,
Dim-looming through the pale, still
light!
The vague, vast grouping of a dream.
They stretch into the solemn night.
Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled
vale.
Hushed by that presence grand
and grave,
Are silent, save the cricket's wail.
And low response of leaf and wave.
Fair scenes! whereto the Day and
Night
Make rival love, I leave ye soon.
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon
Shall hide behind yon rocky spines.
And the young archer. Morn, shall
break
His arrows on the mountain pines,
And, golden-sandalled, walk the
lake!
Farewell ! around this smiling bay
Gay-hearted Health, and Life in
bloom.
With lighter steps than mine, may
stray
In radiant summers yet to come.
But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than
I:
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve
Or dawn is painting wave and sky ;
THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.
^Z3
How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay ;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day ;
Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,
Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering
here,
Shall add, to life's abounding joy,
The charmed repose to suffering
dear.
Still waits kind Nature to impart
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of
pain.
Forever from the Hand that takes
One blessing from us others fall ;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all!
O, watched by Silence and the Night,
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy
face.
Lake of the Northland! keep thy
dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of
power.
Be thou the mirror of God's love.
THE HERMIT OF THE THE-
BAID.
O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith.
From inmost founts of life ye start, —
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!
From pastoral toil, from traffic's din.
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad.
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.
Ye brook no forced and measured
tasks.
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains ;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.
For man the living temple is :
The mercy -seat and cherubim,
And all the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.
And most avails the prayer of love.
Which, wordless, shapes itself in
deeds.
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.
Which brings to God's all-perfect will
That trust of his undoubting child
Whereby all seeming good and ill
Are reconciled.
And, seeking not for special signs
Of favor, is content to fall
Within the providence which shines
And rains on all.
Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
At noontime o'er the sacred word.
Was it an angel or a fiend
Whose voice he heard?
It broke the desert's hush of awe,
A human utterance, sweet and
mild ;
And, looking up, the hermit saw
A little child.
A child, with wonder-widened eyes,
O'erawed and troubled by the sight
Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
And anchorite.
"What dost thou here, poor man?
No shade
Of cool, green doums, nor grass,
nor w^ell,
Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit
said :
'' With God I dwell.
234
MISCELLANEOUS.
"Alone with Him in this great cahn,
I Vive not by the outward sense ;
My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
His providence."
The child gazed round him. " Does
God live
Here only? — where the desert's
rim
Ls green with corn, at morn and eve,
Tp^e pray to Him.
"My ])rother tills beside the Nile
His little field : beneath the leaves
My sisters sit and spin the while,
My mother weaves.
"And when the millet\s ripe heads
fall,
And all the bean-field hangs in pod,
My mother smiles, and says that all
Are gifts from God.
" And when to share our evening
meal,
She calls the stranger at the door.
She says God fills the hands that deal
Food to the poor."
Adown the hermifs wasted cheeks
Glistened the flow of human tears ;
" Dear Lord ! " he said, " thy angel
speaks.
Thy servant hears."
Within his arms the child he took.
And thought of home and Hfe with
men ;
And all his pilgrim feet forsook
Returned again.
The palmy shadows cool and long.
The eyes that smiled through lavish
locks.
Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-
song,
And bleat of flocks.
"O child!" he said, "thou teachest
me
There is no place where God is not ;
That love will make, where'er it be,
A holy spot."
He rose from off the desert sand.
And, leaning on his staff of thorn.
Went, with the young child^ hand-in-
hand.
Like night with morn.
They crossed the desert's burning
line,
And heard the palm-tree's rustling
fan.
The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine,
And voice of man.
Unquestioning, his childish guide
He followed as the small hand led
To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
Her distaff fed.
She rose, she clasped her truant boy,
She thanked the stranger with her
eyes.
The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
And dumb surprise.
And lo! — with sudden warmth and
light
A tender memory thrilled his frame ;
New-born, the world-lost anchorite
A man became.
" O sister of El Zara's race,
Behold me! — had we not one
mother? "
She gazed into the stranger's face ; —
" Thou art my brother? "
" O kin of blood! — Thy life of use
And patient trust is more than
mine;
And wiser than the gray recluse
This child of thine.
" For, taught of him whom God hath
sent.
That toil is praise, and love is
prayer,
BURNS.
235
I come, life's cares and pains content
With thee to share."
Even as his foot the threshold crossed,
The hermit's better Jife began ;
Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost,
And found a man !
BURNS.
ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER
IN BLOSSOM.
No more these simple flowers belong
To Scottish maid and lover ;
Sown in the common soil of song,
They bloom the wide world over.
In smiles and tears, in sun and
showers,
The minstrel and the heather,
The deathless singer and the flowers
He sang of live together.
Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns!
The moorland flower and peasant!
How, at their mention, memory turns
Her pages old and pleasant!
The gray sky wears again its gold
And purple of adorning.
And manhood's noonday shadows
hold
The dews of boyhood's morning.
The dews that washed the dust and
soil
From off" the wings of pleasure.
The sky, that flecked the ground of
toil
With golden threads of leisure.
I call to mind the summer day.
The early harvest mowing,
The sky with sun and clouds at play.
And flowers with breezes blowing.
I hear the blackbird in the corn,
The locust in the haying ;
And, like the fabled hunter's horn,
Old tunes my heart is playing.
How oft that day, with fond delay,
1 sought the maple's shadow.
And sang with Burns the hours away,
Forgetful of the meadow!
Bees hummed, birds twittered, over-
head
I heard the squirrels leaping,
The good dog listened while 1 read,
And wagged his tail in keeping.
I watched him while in sportive mood
I read '' The Tiva Dogs' " story,
And half believed he understood
The poef s allegory.
Sweet day, sweet songs! — The golden
hours
Grew brighter for that singing.
From brook and bird and meadow
flowers
A dearer welcome bringing.
New light on home-seen Nature
beamed.
New glory over Woman ;
And daily life and duty seemed
No longer poor and common.
I woke to find the simple truth
Of fact and feeling better
Than all the dreams that held my
youth
A still repining debtor :
That Nature gives her handmaid. Art,
The themes of sweet discoursing ;
The tender idyls of the heart
In every tongue rehearsing.
W^iy dream of lands of gold and pearl.
Of loving knight and lady.
When farmer boy and barefoot girl
Were wandering there already?
I saw througli all fLimiliar things
The romance underlying ;
2:.6
MISCELLANEOUS.
The jo\'s and griefs that plume the
wings
Of Fancy skyward flying.
I saw the same blithe day return,
The same sweet fall of even,
That rose on wooded Craigie-burn,
And sank on crystal Devon.
I matched with Scotland's heathery
hills
The sweet-brier and the clover ;
With Ayr and Doon, my native rills.
Their wood-hymns chanting over.
O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen,
I saw the Man uprising;
No longer common or unclean.
The child of God's baptizing!
With clearer eyes I saw the worth
Of life among the lowly ;
The Bible at his Cotter's' hearth
Had made my own more holy.
And if at times an evil strain,
To lawless love appealing,
Broke in upon the sweet refrain
Of pure and healthful feeling,
It died upon the eye and ear.
No inward answer gaining ;
No heart had I to see or hear
The discord and the staining.
Let those who never erred forget
His worth, in vain bewailings ;
Sweet Soul of Song ! — I own my debt
Uncancelled by his failings!
Lament who will the ribald line
Which tells his lapse from duty.
How kissed the maddening lips of wine
Or wanton ones of beauty ;
But think, while falls that shade be-
tween
The erring one and Heaven,
That he who loved like Magdalen,
Like her may be forgiven.
Not his the song whose thunderous
chime
Eternal echoes render, —
The mournful Tuscan's haunted
rhyme.
And Milton's starry splendor!
But who his human heart has laid
To Nature's bosom nearer?
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid
To love a tribute dearer?
Through all his tuneful art, how strong
The human feeling gushes!
The very moonlight of his song
Is warm with smiles and blushes!
Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So " Bonnie Doon " but tarry ;
Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his Highland Mary!
WILLIAM FORSTER.
The years are many since his hand
Was laid upon my head,
Too weak and young to understand
The serious words he said.
Yet often now the good man's look
Before me seems to swim.
As if some inward feeling took
The outward guise of him.
As if, in passion's heated war,
Or near temptation's charm.
Through him the low-voiced monitor
Forewarned me of the harm.
Stranger and pilgrim ! — from that day
Of meeting, first and last.
Wherever Duty's pathway lay.
His reverent steps have passed.
The poor to feed, the lost to seek.
To proffer life to death,
Hope to the erring, — to the weak
The strenojth of his own faith.
RANTOUL.
'^Zl
To plead the captive's ri^^ht ; remove
The sting of hate from Law ;
And soften in the fire of love
The hardened steel of War.
He walked the dark world, in the
mild,
Still guidance of the Light ;
In tearful tenderness a child,
A strong man in the right.
From what great perils, on his way.
He found, in prayer, release ;
Through what abysmal shadows lay
His pathway unto peace,
God know^eth : we could only see
The tranquil strength he gained ;
The bondage lost in liberty.
The fear in love unfeigned.
And I, — my youthful fancies grown
The habit of the man.
Whose field of life by angels sown
The wilding vines overran, —
Low bowed in silent gratitude.
My manhood's heart enjoys
That reverence for the pure and good
Which blessed the dreaming boy's.
Still shines the light of holy lives
Like star-beams over doubt ;
Each sainted memory, Christlike,
drives
• Some dark possession out.
O friend! O brother! not in vain
Thy life so calm and true,
The silver dropping of the rain.
The fall of summer dew !
How many burdened hearts have
prayed
Their lives like thine might be!
But more shall pray henceforth for aid
To lay them down like thee.
With weary hand, yet steadfast will,
In" old age as in youth,
Thy Master found thee sowing still
The good seed of his truth.
As on thy task-field closed the day
In golden-skied decline.
His angel met thee on the way,
And lent his arm to thine.
Thy latest care for man, — thy last
Of earthly thought a prayer, —
O, who thy mantle, backward cast,
Is worthy now to wear?
Methinks the mound which marks thy
bed
Might bless our land and save.
As rose, of old, to life the dead
Who touched the prophet's grave!
RANTOUL.
One day, along the electric wire
His manly word for Freedom sped ;
We came next morn : that tongue of
fire
Said only, "He who spake is dead ! "
Dead! while his voice was living yet.
In echoes round the pillared dome!
Dead! while his blotted page lay wet
With themes of state and loves of
home !
Dead! in that crow^ning grace of time.
That triumph of life's zenith hour!
Dead! while we watched his man-
hood's prime
Break from the slow bud into
flower !
Dead! he so great, and strong, and
wise.
While the mean thousands yet drew
breath ;
How deepened^ through that dread
surprise,
The mystery and the awe of death!
238
MISCELLANEOUS.
From the high place whereon our
votes
Had borne him, clear, calm, earn-
est, fell
His first words, like the prelude notes
Of some great anthem yet to swell.
We seemed to see our flag unfurled.
Our champion w^aiting in his place
For the last battle of the world, —
The Armageddon of the race.
Through him we hoped to speak the
word
Which wins the freedom of a land ;
And lift, for human right, the sword
Which dropped from Hampden's
dying hand.
For he had sat at Sidney"'s feet,
And walked with Pym and Vane
apart ;
And, through the centuries, felt the
beat
Of Freedom's march in Cromwell's
heart.
He knew the paths the worthies held.
Where England's best and wisest
trod ;
And, lingering, drank the springs
that welled
Beneath the touch of Milton's rod.
No wnld enthusiast of the right,
Self-poised and clear, he show^ed
alway
The coolness of his northern night.
The ripe repose of autumn's day.
His steps were slow, yet forward still
He pressed where others paused or
failed ;
The calm star clomb with constant
will, —
The restless meteor flashed and
paled !
Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew
And owned the hitjherends of Law :
Still rose majestic on his view
The awful Shape the schoolman
saw.
Her home the heart of God ; her
voice
The choral harmonies whereby
The stars, through all their spheres,
rejoice.
The rhythmic rule of earth and
sky!
We saw his great powers misapplied
To poor ambitions ; yet, through
all.
We saw him take the weaker side,
And right the wronged, and free
the thrall.
Now, looking o'er the frozen North
For one like him in word and act,
To call her old, free spirit forth,
And give her faith the life of fact, —
To break her party bonds of shame,
And labor with the zeal of him
To make the Democratic name
Of Liberty the synonyme, —
We sweep the land from hill to strand,
We seek the strong, the wise, the
brave,
And, sad of heart, return to stand
In silence by a new-made grave!
There, where his breezy hills of home
Look out upon his sail-white seas.
The sounds of winds and waters come.
And shape themselves to words
like these :
'' Why, murmuring, mourn that he,
whose power
Was lent to Party over-long,
Heard the still whisper at the hour
He set his foot on Party wrong?
^^The human life that closed so well
No lapse of folly now can stain ;
THE DREAM OF PIO NONO.
239
The lips whence Freedom's protest
He heard the blessed angels sing of
fell
peace,
No meaner thought can now pro-
Good-will to man, and glory to the
fane.
Lord.
^' Mightier than living voice his giave
Then one, with feet unshod, and
That lofty protest utters o'er ;
leathern face
Through roaring wind and smiting
Hardened and darkened by fierce
wave
summer suns
It speaks his hate of wrong once
And hot winds of the desert, closer
more.
drew
His fisher's haick, and girded up his
*' Men of the North ! your weak re-
loins.
gret
And spake, as one who had authority :
Is wasted liere ; arise and pay
" Come thou with me."
To freedom and to him your debt,
By following where he led the
Lakeside and eastern sky
way ! "
And the sweet song of angels passed
away,
And, with a dream's alacrity of
THE DREAM OF PIO NONO.
change.
The priest, and the swart fisher by
It chanced, that while the pious
his side,
troops of France
Beheld the Eternal City lift its
Fought in the crusade Pio Nono
domes
preached.
And solemn fanes and monumental
What time the holy Bourbons stayed
pomp
his hands
Above the waste Campagna. On the
(The Hur and Aaron meet for such
hills
a Moses),
The blaze of burning villas rose and
Stretched forth from Naples towards
fell,
rebellious Rome
And momently the mortar's iron
To bless the ministry of Oudinot,
throat
And sanctify his iron homilies
Roared from the trenches; and,
And sharp persuasions of the bayonet.
within the walls,
That the great pontiff fell asleep, and
SharD crash of shells, low groans of
dreamed.
luman pain,
Shout, drum beat, and the clanging
He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the
larum-bell,
sun
And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled
Of the bright Orient ; and beheld the
sound.
lame,
Half wail and half defiance. As they
The sick, and blind, kneel at the
passed
Master's feet.
The gate of San Pancrazio, human
And rise up whole. And, sweetly
blood
over all.
Flowed ankle-high about them, and
Dropping the ladder of their hymn
dead men
of praise
Choked the long street with gashed
From heaven to earth, in silver rounds
and gory piles, —
of song,
A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh,
240
MISCELLANEOUS.
From which, at times, quivered a liv-
ing hand,
TAULER.
And white Hps moved and moaned.
A father tore
Tauler, the preacher, walked, one
His gray hairs, by the body of his
autumn day.
son,
Without the walls of Strasburg, by
In frenzy ; and his fair young daughter
the Rhine,
wept
Pondering the solemn Miraele of
On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash
Life ;
Clove the thick sulphurous air, and
As one who, wandering in a starless
man and maid
night.
Sank, crushed and mangled by the
Feels, momently, the jar of unseen
shattering shell.
waves.
And hears the thunder of an unknown
Then spake the Galilean : " Thou
sea.
hast seen
Breaking along an unimagined shore.
The blessed Master and his works of
love ;
And as he walked he prayed.
Look now on thine! Hear'st thou
Even the same
the angels sing
Old prayer with wdiich, for half a
Above this open hell? Thou God's
score of years.
high -priest!
Morning, and noon, and evening, lip
Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of
and heart
Peace !
Had groaned : ^' Have pity upon me.
Thou the successor of his chosen
Lord!
ones !
Thou seest, while teaching others, I
I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee,
am blind.
In the dear Master's name, and for
Send me a man who can direct my
the love
steps ! "
Of his true Church, proclaim thee Anti-
christ,
Then, as he mused, he heard along
Alien and separate from his holy faith.
his path
Wide as the difference between death
A sound as of an old man's staff
and life.
among
The hate of man and the great love of
The dry, dead linden-leaves ; and.
God!
looking up.
Hence, and repent!''
He saw a stranger, weak, and poor.
and old.
Thereat the pontiff woke.
Trembling, and muttering o'er his
^' Peace be unto thee, father!"
fearful dream.
Tauler said.
^^What means he?" cried the Bour-
" God give thee a good day ! " The
bon. " Nothing more
old man raised
Than that your majesty hath all too
Slowly his calm blue eyes. " I thank
well
thee, son ;
Catered for your poor guests, and that.
But all my days are good, and none
in sooth,
are ill."
The Holy Father's supper troubleth
him,"
Wondering thereat, the preacher
Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile.
spake again,
TAULER.
241
" God give thee happy life." The old
man smiled,
" I never am unhappy."
Tauler laid
His hand upon the stranger's coarse
gray sleeve :
*' Tell me, O father, what thy strange
words mean.
Surely man's days are evil, and his
Hfe
Sad as the grave it leads to." '* Nay,
my son,
Our times are in God's hands, and all
our days
Are as our needs : for shadow as for
sun.
For cold as heat, for want as wealth,
alike
Our thanks are due, since that is best
which is ;
And that which is not, sharing not
his life,
Is evil only as devoid of good.
And for the happiness of which I
spake,
I find it in submission to his will,
And calm tiTist in the holy Trinity
Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Al-
mighty Power.'"
Silently wondering, for a little
space.
Stood the great preacher; then he
spake as one
Who, suddenly grappling with a
haunting thought
Which long has followed, whispering
through the dark
Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking,
into light :
" What if God's will consign thee
hence to Hell? "
^^ Then,'' said the stranger, cheerily,
*'be it so.
What Hell may be I know not ; this
I know, —
I cannot lose the presence of the
Lord :
One arm. Humility, takes hold upon
His dear Humanity ; the other. Love,
Clasps his Divinity. So where I go
He goes ; and better fire-walled Hell
with Him
Than golden-gated Paradise with-
out."
Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A
sudden light.
Like the first ray which fell on chaos,
clove
Apart the shadow wherein he had
walked
Darkly at noon. And, as the strange
old man
Went his slow way, until his silver
hair
Set like the white moon wliere the
hills of vine
Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his
head and said :
" My prayer is answered. God hath
sent the man
Long sought, to teach me, by his sim-
ple trust
Wisdom the weary schoolmen never
knew."
So, entering with a changed and
cheerful step
The city gates, he saw, far down the
street,
A mighty shadow break the light of
noon.
While tracing backward till its airy
lines
Hardened to stony plinths, he raised
his eyes
O'er broad facade and lofty pediment.
O'er architrave and frieze and sainted
niche,
L^p the stone lace-work chiselled by
the wise
Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where
In the noon-brightness the great Min-
ster's tower.
Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural
crown.
242
MISCELLANEOUS.
Rose like a visible prayer. " Be-
hold! " he said,
'• The stranger^s faith made plain be-
fore mine eyes.
As yonder tower outstretches to the
earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
When the clear day is shining on its
top,
So, darkness in the pathway of Man's
life
Ls but the shadow of God's providence,
By the great Sun of Wisdom cast
thereon ;
And what is dark below is light in
Heaven.^''
LINES,
SUGGESTED BY READING A STATE
PAPER, WHEREIN THE HIGHER
LAW IS INVOKED TO SUSTAIN THE
LOWER ONE.
A PIOUS magistrate ! sound his praise
throughout
The wondering churches. Who shall
henceforth doubt
That the long-wished millennium
draweth nigh?
Sin in high places has become devout,
Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and
prays its lie
Straight up to Heaven, and calls it
piety!
The pirate, watching from his bloody
deck
The weltering galleon, heavy with
the gold
Of Acapulco, holding death in check
While prayers are said, brows
crossed, and beads are told, —
The robber, kneeling where the w^ay-
side cross
On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread
loss
From his own carbine, glancing still
abroad
For some new victim, offering thanks
to God! —
Rome, listening at her altars to the
Of midnight Murder, while her hounds
of hell
Scour France, from baptized cannon
and holy bell
And thousand-throated priesthood,
loud and high,
Pealing Te Deums to the shudder-
ing sky,
" Thanks to the Lord, who giveth
victory ! "
What prove these, but that crime was
ne'er so black
As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to
lack.?
Satan is modest. At Heaven's door
he lays
His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural
phrase
And saintly posture, gives to God the
praise
And honor of the monstrous progeny.
What marvel, then, in our own time
to see
His old devices, smoothly acted oVr, —
Official piety, locking fast the door
Of Hope against three million souls of
men, —
Brothers, God's children, Christ's re-
deemed,— and then.
With uprolled eyeballs and on bended
knee,
Whining a prayer for help to hide the
key!
THE VOICES.
" Why urge the long, unequal fight.
Since Truth has fallen in the street.
Or lift anew the trampled light.
Quenched by the heedless million's
feet?
" Give o'er the thankless task ; forsake
The foois who know not ill from
good;
THE VOICES.
M^
p:at, drink, enjoy thy own, and take
Thine ease among the multitude.
'' Live out thyself; with others share
Thy proper life no more ; assume
The unconcern of sun and air,
For life or death, or blight or bloom.
" The mountain pine looks calmly on
The fires that scourge the plains
below.
Nor heeds the eagle in the sun
The small birds piping in the snow!
"The world is God's, not thine; let
him
Work out a change, if change must
be:
The hand that planted best can trim
And nurse the old unfruitful tree."
So spake the Tempter, when the light
Of sun and stars had left the sky,
I listened, through the cloud and night.
And heard, methought, a voice re-
ply:
^' Thy task may well seem over-hard.
Who scatterest in a thankless soil
Thy life as seed, with no reward
Save that which Duty gives to Toil.
'^ Not wholly is thy heart resigned
To Heaven\s benign and just decree,
Which, linking thee with all thy kind.
Transmits their joys and griefs to
thee.
" Break off that sacred chain, and turn
Back on thyself thy love and care ;
Be thou thine own mean idol, burn
Faith, Hope, and Trust, thy chil-
dren, there.
" Released from that fraternal law
Which shares the common bale and
bliss,
No sadder lot could Folly draw,
Or Sin provoke from Fate, than this.
" The meal unshared is food unblest ;
Thou hoard'st in vain what love
should spend ;
Self-ease is pain ; thy only rest
Is labor for a worthy end.
" A toil that gains with what it yields.
And scatters to its own increase.
And hears, while sowing outward
fields,
The harvest-song of inward peace.
" Free-lipped the liberal streamlets run,
Free shines for all the healthful ray ;
The still pool stagnates in the sun.
The lurid earth-iire haunts decay!
" What is it, that the crowd requite
Thy love with hate, thy truth with
lies?
And but to faith, and not to sight.
The walls of Freedom\s temple rise?
" Yet do thy work ; it shall succeed
In thine or in another\s day;
And, if denied the victor's meed.
Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.
" Faith shares the future's promise ;
Love's
Self-offering is a triumph won ;
And each good thought or action
moves
The dark world nearer to the sun.
" Then faint not, falter not, nor plead
Thy weakness ; truth itself is strong;
The lion's strength, the eagle's speed,
Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.
'' Thy nature, which, through fire and
flood.
To place or gain finds out its way.
Hath power to seek the highest good,
And duty's holiest call obey!
"Strivest thou in darkness?— Foes
without
In league with traitor thoughts
within ;
244
MlSCELLANEOaS.
Thy night-watch kept with trembling
Doubt
And pale Remorse the ghost of
Sin? —
" Hast thou not, on some week of
storm,
Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking
fair,
And cloud and shadow, sunlit, form
The curtains of its tent of prayer?
'^ So, haply, when thy task shall end.
The wrong shall lose itself in right.
And all thy week-day darkness blend
With the lono: Sabbath of the lio^ht !"
THE HERO.
" O FOR a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear ;
My light glove on his casque of steel.
My love-knot on his spear!
" O for the white plume floating
Sad Zutphen's field above, —
The lion heart in battle,
The woman's heart in love!
" O that man once more were manly.
Woman's pride, and not her scorn :
That once more the pale young mother
Uared to boast ' a man is born ' !
" But, now life's slumberous current
No sun-bowed cascade wakes ;
No tall, heroic manhood
The level dulness breaks.
" O for a knight like Bayard,
Without reproach or fear!
My light glove on his casque of steel.
My love-knot on his spear!"
Then I said, my own heart throbbing
To the time her proud pulse beat,
'' Life hath its regal natures yet, —
True, tender, brave, and sweet!
" Smile not, fair unbeliever!
One man, at least, I know.
Who might wear the crest of Bayard
Or Sidney's plume of snow.
" Once, when over purple mountains
Died away the Grecian sun,
And the far Cyllenian ranges
Paled and darkened, one by one, —
'' Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder.
Cleaving all the quiet sky.
And against his sharp steel light-
nings
Stood the Suliote but to die.
^' Woe for the weak and halting!
The crescent blazed behind
A curving line of sabres.
Like fire before the wind!
" Last to fly and first to rally,
Rode he of whom I speak,
When, groaning in his bridle-path,
Sank down a wounded Greek.
"With the rich Albanian costume
Wet with many a ghastly stain,
Gazing on earth and sky as one
Who might not gaze again !
"He looked forward to the mountains,
Back on foes that never spare.
Then flung him from his saddle,
And placed the stranger there.
" ' Allah ! hu ! ' Through flashing sa-
bres.
Through a stormy hail of lead.
The good Thessalian charger
Up the slopes of olives sped.
"' Hot spurred the turbaned riders ;
He almost felt their breath.
Where a mountain stream rolled
darkly down
Between the hills and death.
" One brave and manful struggle, —
He gained the solid land,
MY DREAM.
245
And the cover of the mountains,
Anclthe carbines of his band!"
" It was very great and noble,'^
Said the moist-eyed listener then,
" But one brave deed makes no hero ;
Tell me what he since hath been ! "
^^ Still a brave and generous manhood,
Still an honor without stain.
In the prison of the Kaiser,
By the barricades of Seine.
" But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true ;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew.
"Wouldst know him now? Behold
him.
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lip language,
The idiot clay a mind.
^^ Walking his round of duty
Serenely day by day.
With the strong man's hand of labor
And childhood's heart of play.
" True as the knights of story.
Sir Lancelot and his peers.
Brave in his calm endurance
As they in tilt of spears.
" As waves in stillest waters.
As stars in noonday skies,
All that wakes to noble action
In his noon of calmness lies.
'' Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave.
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave, —
" Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sink a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
" Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?"
MY DREAM.
In my dream, methought I trod,
Yesternight, a mountain road ;
Narrow as Al Sirat's span,
High as eagle's flight, it ran.
Overhead, a roof of cloud
With its weight of thunder bowed ;
Underneath, to left and right,
Blankness and abysmal night.
Here and there a wild-flower bluslied,
Now and then a bird-song gushed ;
Now and then, through rifts of shade.
Stars shone out, and sunbeams played.
But the goodly company,
Walking in that path- with me,
One by one the brink o'erslid.
One by one the darkness hid.
Some with wailing and lament,
Some with cheerful courage went ;
But, of all who smiled or mourned.
Never one to us returned.
Anxiously, with eye and ear.
Questioning that shadow drear,
Never hand in token stirred.
Never answering voice I heard !
Steeper, darker! — lo! I felt
From my feet the pathway melt.
Swallowed by the black despair,
And the hungry jaws of air,
Past the stony-throated caves,
Strangled by the wash of waves,
Past the splintered crags, I sank
On a green and flowery bank, —
Soft as fall of thistle-down,
Lightly as a cloud is blown,
246
MISCELLANEOUS.
Soothingly as childhood pressed
To the bosom of its rest.
Of the sharp-horned rocks instead,
Green the grassy meadows spread,
Bright with waters singing by
Trees that propped a golden sky.
Painless, trustful, sorrow-free,
Old lost faces welcomed me,
With whose sweetness of content
Still expectant hope was blent.
Waking while the dawning gray
Slowly brightened into day.
Pondering that vision fled,
Thus unto myself I said : —
" Steep, and hung with clouds of strife,
Is our narrow path of life ;
And our death the dreaded fall
Through the dark, awaiting all.
^^ So, with painful steps we climb
Up the dizzy ways of time,
Ever in the shadow shed
By the forecast of our dread.
'' Dread of mystery solved alone.
Of the untried and unknown ;
Yet the end thereof may seem
Like the falling of my dream.
"And this heart-consuming care.
All our fears of here or there.
Change and absence, loss and death,
Prove but simple lack of faith."
Thou, O Most Compassionate!
Who didst stoop to our estate.
Drinking of the cup we drain,
Treading in our path of pain, —
Through the doubt and mystery,
Grant to us thy steps to see.
And the grace to draw from thence
Larger hope and confidence.
Show thy vacant tomb, and let,
As of old, the angels sit,
Whispering, by its open door :
'' P^ear not! He hath gone before! "
THE BAREFOOT BOY.
Blessings on thee, little man.
Barefoot boy, witli cheek of tan !
With thy turned-up pantaloons.
And thy merry whistled tunes ;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ;
With the sunshine on thy face.
Through thy torn brim^s jaunty grace ;
From my heart I give thee joy, —
I was once a barefoot boy!
Prince thou art, — the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side.
Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye, —
Outward sunshine, inward joy :
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
O for boyhood's painless play.
Sleep that wakes in laughing day.
Health that mocks the doctor's rules.
Knowledge never learned of schools.
Of the wild bee's morning chase.
Of the wild-flowers time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood ;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell.
And the ground-mole sinks his well ;
How the robin feeds her young.
How the oriole's nest is hung ;
Where the whitest lilies blow.
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the groundnut trails its vine.
Where the wood-grape's clusters
shine ;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans! —
For, eschewing books and tasks.
Nature answers all he asks ;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
FLOWERS IN WINTER.
M7
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy, —
Blessings on the barefoot boy!
O for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees.
Humming-birds and honey-bees ;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade ;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone ;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the
night.
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall ;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond.
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still as my horizon grew.
Larger grew my riches too ;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy !
O for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread, —
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood.
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent.
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra ;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch : pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy !
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard.
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew ;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat :
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride.
Lose the freedom of the sod.
Like a colt's for work be shod.
Made to tread the mills of toil.
Up and down in ceaseless moil :
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground ;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
P2re it passes, barefoot boy!
FLOWERS IN WINTER.
PAINTED UPON A PORTE LIVRE.
How strange to greet, this frosty
morn.
In graceful counterfeit of flowers,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers !
How well the conscious wood retains
The pictures of its flower-sown
home, —
The lights and shades, the purple
stains.
And golden hues of bloom !
It was a happy thought to bring
To the dark season's frost and rime
This painted memory of spring,
This dream of summer-time.
Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
Our fancy's age renews its youth.
And dim-remembered fictions take
The guise of present tmth.
A wizard of the Merrimack, —
So old ancestral legends say, —
Could call green leaf and blossom
back
To frosted stem and spray.
248
MISCELLANEOUS.
The dry logs of the cottage wall,
Beneath his touch, put out their
leaves ;
The clay-bound swallow, at his call,
Played round the icy eaves.
The settler saw his oaken flail
Take bud, and bloom before his
eyes ;
From frozen pools he saw the pale,
Sweet summer lilies rise.
To their old homes, by man pro-
faned,
Came the sad dryads, exiled long.
And through their leafy tongues com-
plained
Of household use and wrong.
The beechen platter sprouted wild,
The pipkin w^ore its old-time
green ;
The cradle o'er the sleeping child
Became a leafy screen.
Haply our gentle friend hath met.
While wandering in her sylvan
quest,
Haunting his native woodlands yet,
That Druid of the West ; —
And, while the dew on leaf and
flower
Glistened in moonlight clear and
still.
Learned the dusk wizard's spell of
power,
And caught his trick of skill.
But welcome, be it new or old.
The gift which makes the day more
bright.
And paints, upon the ground of cold
And darkness, warmth and light!
Without is neither gold nor green ;
Within, for birds, the birch-logs
sing ;
Yet, summer-like, we sit between
The autumn and the spring.
The one, with bridal blush of rose.
And sweetest breath of woodland
balm.
And one whose matron lips unclose
In smiles of saintly calm.
Fill soft and deep, O winter snow !
The sweet azalia's oaken dells.
And hide the bank where roses
blow.
And swing the azure bells!
Overlay the amber violet's leaves.
The purple aster's brookside home.
Guard all the flowers her pencil gives
A life beyond their bloom.
And she, when sjDring comes round
again.
By greening slope and singing flood
Shall wander, seeking, not in vain.
Her darlings of the wood.
THE RENDITION.
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle
call,
I saw an earnest look beseech.
And rather by that look than speech
My neighbor told me all.
And, as I thought of Liberty
Marched hand-cufled down that
sworded street.
The solid earth beneath my feet
Reeled fluid as the sea.
I felt a sense of bitter loss, —
Shame, tearless grief, and stifling
wrath.
And loathing fear, as if my path
A serpent stretched across.
All love of home, all pride of place.
All generous confidence and trust.
Sank smothering in that deep dis-
gust
And anguish of disgrace.
THE FRUIT-GIFT.
249
Down on my native hills of June,
And home's green quiet, hiding all,
Fell sudden darkness like the fall
Of midnight upon noon!
And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
Blood-drunken, through the black-
ness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
The blasphemy of wrong.
"• O Mother, from thy memories proud.
Thy old renown, dear Common-
wealth,
Lend this dead air a breeze of
health.
And smite with stars this cloud.
"• Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,
Rise awful in thy strength," I said ;
Ah me! I spake but to the dead ;
I stood upon her grave !
6th 7no., 1854.
LINES,
ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL TO
PROTECT THE RIGHTS AND LIBER-
TIES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE
STATE AGAINST THE FUGITIVE
SLAVE ACT.
I SAID I stood upon thy grave.
My Mother State, when last the
moon
Of blossoms clomb the skies of
June.
And, scattering ashes on my head,
I wore, undreaming of relief.
The sackcloth of thy shame and
grief.
Again that moon of blossoms shines
On leaf and flower and folded
wing.
And thou hast risen with the
spring !
Once more thy strong maternal arms
Are round about thy children
flung, —
A lioness that guards her young!
No threat is on thy closed lips.
But in thine eye a power to smite
The mad wolf backward from its
light.
Southward the baflied robber's track
Henceforth runs only ; hereaway.
The fell lycanthrope finds no prey.
Henceforth, within thy sacred gates.
His first low howl shall downward
draw
The thunder of thy righteous law.
Not mindless of thy trade and gain,
But, acting on the wiser plan.
Thou Yt grown conservative of man.
So shalt thou clothe with life the
hope.
Dream-painted on the sightless eyes
Of him who sang of Paradise, —
The vision of a Christian man,
In virtue as in stature great.
Embodied in a Christian State.
And thou, amidst thy sisterhood
Forbearing long, yet standing fast,
Shalt win their grateful thanks at
last;
When North and South shall strive
no more.
And all their feuds and fears be lost
In Freedom's holy Pentecost.
6t/i mo., 1855.
THE FRUIT-GIFT.
Last night, just as the tints of au-
tumn's sky
Of sunset faded from our hills and
streams,
250
MISCELLANEOUS.
I sat, vague listening, lapped in
twiliglits dreams,
To the leafs rustle, and the cricket's
cry.
Then, like that basket, flush with sum-
mer fruit.
Dropped by the angels at the Prophet's
foot,
Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered
sweetness.
Full-orbed, and glowing with the
prisoned beams
Of summery suns, and, rounded to
completeness
By kisses of the south-wind and the
dew.
Thrilled with a glad surprise, me-
th ought I knew
The pleasure of the homeward-turning
Jew,
When EschoFs clusters on his shoul-
ders lay.
Dropping their sweetness on his
desert way.
I said, '^ This fruit beseems no world
of sin.
Its parent vine, rooted in Para-
dise,
O'ercrept the wall, and never paid
the price
Of the great mischief, — an ambrosial
tree,
Eden's exotic, somehow smuggled in.
To keep the thorns and thistles
company.''^
Perchance our frail, sad mother
plucked in haste
A single vine-slip as she passed the
gate,
Where the dread sword, alternate
paled and burned.
And the stern angel, pitying her
fate,
Forgave the lovely trespasser, and
turned
Aside his face of fire ; and thus the
waste
And fallen world hath yet its annual
taste
Of primal good, to prove of sin the
cost.
And show by one gleaned ear the
mighty harvest lost.
A MEMORY.
Here, while the loom of Winter
weaves
The shroud of flowers and foun-
tains,
I think of thee and summer eves
Among the Northern mountains.
When thunder tolled the twilight's
close.
And winds the lake were rude on.
And thou wert singing, Ca^ the Vowes,
The bonny yowes of Cluden !
When, close and closer, hushing
breath.
Our circle narrowed round thee.
And smiles and tears made up the
wreath
Wherewith our silence crowned
thee ;
And, strangers all, we felt the ties
Of sisters and of brothers ;
Ah ! whose of all those kindly eyes
Now smile upon another's ?
The sport of Time, who still apart
The waifs of life is flinging ;
O, nevermore shall heart to heart
Draw nearer for that singing!
Yet when the panes are frosty-starred.
And twilight's fire is gleaming,
I hear the songs of Scotland's bard
Sound softly through my dreaming!
A song that lends to winter snows
The glow of summer weather, —
Again I hear thee ca' the yowes
To Cluden's hills of heather!
THE KANSAS EiMlGRANTS.
251
TO C. S.
If I have seemed more prompt to
censure wrong
Than praise the right ; if seldom to
thine ear
My voice hath mingled with the
exultant cheer
Borne upon all our Northern winds
along ;
If I have failed to join the fickle
throng
In wide-eyed wonder, that thou stand-
est strong
In victory, surprised in thee to find
Brougham's scathing power with Can-
ning's grace combined ;
That he, for whom the ninefold Muses
sang,
From their twined arms a giant ath-
lete sprang.
Barbing the arrows of his native
tongue
With the" spent shafts Latona's archer
flung.
To smite the Python of our land and
time,
Fell as the monster born of Crissa's
slime,
Like the blind bard who in Castalian
springs
Tempered the steel that clove the
crest of kings,
And on the shrine of England's free-
dom laid
The gifts of Cumae and of Delphi's
shade, —
Small need hast thou of words of
praise from me.
Thou knowest my heart, dear friend,
and well canst guess
That, even though silent, I have not
the less
Rejoiced to see thy actual life
agree
With the large future which I shaped
for thee,
When, years ago, beside the summer
sea,
White in the moon, we saw the long
waves fall
Baffled and broken from the rocky
wall.
That, to the menace of the brawling
flood,
Opposed alone its massive quietude,
Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor
vine
Nor birch-spray trembling in the still
moonshine.
Crowning it like God's peace. I
sometimes think
That night-scene by the sea pro-
phetical, —
(For Nature speaks in symbols and
in signs,
And through her pictures human fate
divines), —
That rock, wherefrom we saw the bil-
low^s sink
In murmuring rout, uprising clear
and tall
In the white light of heaven, the type
of one
Who, momently by Error's host as-
sailed.
Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of
granite mailed ;
And, tranquil-fronted, listening
over all
The tumult, hears the angels say.
Well done!
THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS.
We cross the prairie as of old
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!
We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine!
We 're flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow ;
The blessing of our Mother-land
Is on us as we go.
252
MISCELLANEOUS.
We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.
Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.
No pause, nor rest, save where the
streams
That feed the Kansas run.
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!
We '11 tread the prairie as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea.
And make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free !
SONG OF SLAVES IN THE
DESERT.
Where are we going? where are we
going.
Where are we going, Rubee?
Lord of peoples, lord of lands.
Look across these shining sands.
Through the furnace of the noon.
Through the white light of the moon.
Strong the Ghiblee wind is blowing,
Strange and large the world is grow-
ing!
Speak and tell us where we are going.
Bornou land was rich and good,
Wells of water, fields of food,
Dourra fields, and bloom of bean,
And the palm-tree cool and green :
Bornou land we see no longer,
Here we thirst and here we hunger.
Here the Moor-man smites in anger :
Where are we going, Rubee?
When we went from Bornou land,
We were like the leaves and sand,
We were many, we are few ;
Life has one, and death has two :
Whitened bones our path are show-
ing,
Thou All-seeing, thou All-knowing!
Hear us, tell us, where are we going,
Moons of marches from our eyes
Bornou land behind us lies ;
Stranger round us day by day
Bends the desert circle gray ;
Wild the waves of sand are flowing.
Hot the winds above them blowing, —
Lord of all things! — where are we
going?
We are weak, but Thou art strong ;
Short our lives, but Thine is long;
We are blind, but Thou hast eyes ;
We are fools, but Thou art wise!
Thou, our morrow's pathway know-
ing
Through the strange world round us
growing.
Hear us, tell us where are we going,
LINES,
INSCRIBED TO FRIENDS UNDER AR-
REST FOR TREASON AGAINST THE
SLAVE POWER.
The age is dull and mean. Men
creep.
Not walk ; with blood too pale and
tame
To pay the debt they owe to
shame ;
Buy cheap, sell dear ; eat, drink, and
sleep
Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning
want ;
Pay tithes for soul-insurance ; keep
Six days to Mammon, one to Cant.
I
4
THE NEW EXODUS.
^53
In such a time, give thanks to God,
That somewhat of the lioly rage
With which the prophets in their
age
On all its decent seemings trod.
Has set your feet upon the lie.
That man and ox and soul and clod
Are market stock to sell and buy !
The hot words from your lips, my
own,
To caution trained, might not re-
peat ;
But if some tares among the wheat
Of generous thought and deed were
sown.
No common wrong provoked your
zeal ;
The silken gauntlet that is thrown
In such a quarrel rings like steel.
The brave old strife the fathers saw
For Freedom calls for men again
Like those who battled not in vain
For England's Charter, Alfred's law ;
And right of speech and trial just
Wage in your name their ancient war
With venal courts and perjured
trust.
God's ways seem dark, but, soon or
late, '
They touch the shining hills of day;
The evil cannot brook delay,
The good can well afford to wait.
Give ermined knaves their hour of
crime ;
Ye have the future grand and great.
The safe appeal of Truth to Time!
THE NEW EXODUS.
By fire and cloud, across the desert
sand.
And through the parted waves.
From their long bondage, with an
outstretched hand,
God led the Hebrew slaves !
Dead as the letter of the Penta-
teuch,
As Egypt's statues cold.
In the adytum of the sacred book
Now stands that marvel old.
'^ Lo, God IS great! ■'' the simple Mos-
lem says.
We seek the ancient date.
Turn the dry scroll, and make that
living phrase
A dead qne : '* God was great ! ■'
And, like the Coptic monks by Mousa's
wells,
We dream of w^onders past.
Vague as the tales the wandering
Arab tells.
Each drowsier than the last.
O fools and blind! Above the Pyra-
mids
Stretches once more that hand.
And tranced Egypt, from her stony
lids.
Flings back her veil of sand.
And morning-smitten Memnon, sing-
ing, wakes ;
And. listening by his Nile,
O'er Amnion's grave and awful visage
breaks
A sweet and human smile.
Not, as before, with hail and fire, and
call
Of death for midnight graves.
But in the stillness of the noonday,
fall
The fetters of the slaves.
No longer through the Red Sea, as of
old.
The bondmen walk dry shod ;
Through human hearts, by love of
Him controlled,
Runs now that path of God !
254
MISCELLANEOUS.
THE HASCHISH.
Of all that Orient lands can vaunt
Of marvels with our own competing,
The strangest is the Haschish plant,
And what will follow on its eating.
What pictures to the taster rise,
Of Dervish or of Almeh dances!
Of Eblis, or of Paradise,
Set all aglow with Houri glances !
The poppy visions of Cathay,
The heavy beer-trance of the Sua-
bian ;
The wizard lights and demon play
Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian !
The Mollah and the Christian dog
Change place in mad metempsycho-
sis ;
The Muezzin climbs the synagogue,
The Rabbi shakes his beard at
Moses!
The Arab by his desert well
Sits choosing from some Caliph^s
daughters,
And hears his single cameFs bell
Sound welcome to his regal quar-
ters.
The Koran's reader makes complaint
Of Shitan dancing on and off it ;
The robber offers alms, the saint
Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the
Prophet.
Such scenes that Eastern plant
awakes ;
But we have one ordained to beat it,
The Haschish of the West, which
makes
Or fools or knaves of all who eat it.
The preacher eats, and straight ap-
pears
His Bible in a new translation ;
Its angels negro overseers,
And Heaven itself a snug planta-
tion!
The man of peace, about whose
dreams
The sweet millennial angels cluster,
Tastes the mad weed, and plots and
schemes,
A raving Cuban filibuster!
The noisiest Democrat, with ease,
It turns to Slavery's parish beadle;
The shrewdest statesman eats and
sees
Due southward jDoint the polar
needle.
The Judge partakes, and sits erelong
Upon his bench a railing black-
guard ;
ides off-
And reads the ten commandmenls
backward.
O potent plant ! so rare a taste
Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten ;
The hempen Haschish of the East
Is powerless to our Western Cotton !
MARY GARVIN. 255
BALLADS.
MARY GARVIN.
From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway\s intervales ;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, dams, and mills.
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom of the hills,
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet of the loon!
With smoking axle hot with speed, with steads of fire and steam,
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past.
But human hearts remain unchanged : the sorrow and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin ;
And, in the tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung.
Tradition, snowy-bearded, leans on Romance, ever young.
O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to-day !
O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's restless ])lay!
Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand beguile.
And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or smile !
The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary's walls ;
Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco's falls.
And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and gusty grew,
Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spurwink blew.
On the hearth of Farmer Garvin blazed the crackling walnut log;
Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between them lay the dog,
Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside him on her mat.
Sitting drowsy in the fire-light, winked and purred the mottled cat.
" Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin, speaking sadly, under breath,
And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who speaks of death.
The goodwife dropped her needles : '' It is twenty years, to-day,
Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child away."
256 BALLADS.
Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the other's thought,
Of a great and common sorrow, and words were needed not.
^' Who knocks? '' cried Goodman Garvin. The door was open thrown ;
On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone.
One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from his head;
'* Lives here Elkanah Garvin.^ " " I am he,"' the goodman said.
" Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night is chill with rain."
And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the fire amain.
The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the fire-light glistened fair
In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of dark brown hair.
Dame Garvin looked upon her : " It is Mary's self I see !
Dear heart!" she cried, '' now tell me, has my child come back to me? "
" My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger, sobbing wild ;
" Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!
'' She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day
She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far away.
" And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong,
She said, ' May God forgive me! I have closed my heart too long.
'* ' When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call,
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all.
'' ' Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart ;
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.
**^Tell me not the Church must censure : she who wept the Cross beside
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied ;
" ^ And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them,
Earthly daughter, Heavenly mother! thou at least wilt not condemn!'
'' So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake ;
As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her sake."
'' God be praised! " said Goodwife Garvin, ^* He taketh, and he gives ;
He woundeth, but he healeth ; in her child our daughter lives! "
** Amen! " the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away,
And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, '' Let us pray."
MARY GARVIN. 257
All its. Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew paraphrase,
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise.
But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee,
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie.
'' What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. " Is an English Christian's home
A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome ? "
Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried:
^' O, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died!
^' On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall,
As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard ; and the dear God watches all! "
The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee ;
" Your words, dear child," he answered, *' are God's rebuke to me.
•^ Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one.
Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son."
When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air,
From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon and to prayer,
To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit ;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown.
From the brave coat, lace embroidered, to the gray frock, shading down ;
From the pulpit read the preacher, — " Goodman Garvin and his wife
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has followed them through life,
^^ For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild,
Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child ;
"And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove
Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love.''
As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple stood.
And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maidenhood.
Thought the elders, grave and doubting, " She is Papist born and bred";
Thought the young men, " 'T is an angel in Mary Garvin's stead ! "
s
258
BALLADS.
MAUD MULLER.
Maud Mullek, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the
wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry
glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off
town.
White from its hill-slope looking
down,
The sweet song died, and a vague un-
rest
. a 1
breast, —
A wish, that she hardly dared to
own,
For something better than she had
known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane.
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid.
And ask a draught from the spring
that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring
bubbled up.
And filled for him her small tin cup.
And blushed as she gave it, looking
down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered
gown.
^^ Thanks!" said the Judge; ^'a
sweeter drau":ht
From a fairer hand was never
quaffed.''
He spoke of the grass and flowers
and trees,
the singing
ming bees ;
Then talked of the haying, and won-
dered whether
The cloud in the west would bring
foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown.
And her graceful ankles bare and
brown ;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel
eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed :
'' Ah me !
That I the Judge's bride might be!
" He would dress me up in silks so
fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
" My father should wear a broadcloth
coat;
My brother should sail a painted
boat.
'^ I 'd dress my mother so grand and
And the baby should have a new toy
each day.
'' And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe
the poor,
And all should bless me who left our
door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed
the hill,
And saw Maud Mailer standing still.
MAUD MULLER.
259
'' A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
^^And her modest answer and grace-
ful air
Show her wise and good as she is
fair.
" Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay :
" No doubtful balance of rights and
wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless
tongues,
" But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health and quiet and loving
words.""
But he thought of his sisters proud
and cold.
And his mother vain of her rank and
gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode
on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that after-
noon.
When he hummed in court an old
love-tune ;
And the young girl mused beside the
well.
Till the rain on the unraked clover
fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for
power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright
glow,
He watched a picture come and go ;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent sur-
prise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was
red,
He longed for the wayside well in-
stead ;
And closed his eyes on his garnished
rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-
blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a
secret pain,
" Ah, that I were free again !
" Free as when I rode that day.
Where the barefoot maiden raked her
hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and
poor,
And many children played round her
door.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth
pain.
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone
hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow
lot,
And she heard the little spring brook
fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace.
She felt his pleased eyes read her
face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls ;
The weary wheel to a spinnet
turned.
The tallow candle an astral burned,
26o
BALLADS.
And for him who sat by the chimney
Dozing and grumbhng o'er pipe and
mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life
again.
Saying only, ^'It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household
drudge !
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth
recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen.
The saddest are these: ''It might
have been !^'
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope
lies
Deeply buried from human eyes ;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
THE RANGER.
Robert Rawlin ! — Frosts were fall-
ing
When the ranger's horn was calling
Through the woods to Canada.
Gone the winter's sleet and snowing.
Gone the spring-time's bud and blow-
ing,
Gone the summer's harvest mowing.
And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he 's away !
Faint and fainter hope is growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.
WHiere the lion, crouching high on
Abraham's rock with teeth of iron.
Glares o'er w^ood and wave away,
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,
Or as thunder spent and dying.
Come the challenge and replying,
Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
Some are living, some are lying
In their red graves far away.
Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
.Homeward faring, weary strangers
Pass the farm-gate on their way ;
Tidings of the dead and living,
Forest march and ambush, giving.
Till the maidens leave their weaving.
And the lads forget their play.
'' vStill away, still away! "
Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving,
''Why does Robert still delay!"
Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer.
Does the golden-locked fruit-bearer
Through his painted woodlands
stray.
Than where hillside oaks and beeches
Overlook the long, blue reaches,
Silver coves and pel^bled beaches,
And green isles of Casco Bay ;
Nowhere day, for delay.
With a tenderer look beseeches,
" Let me with my charmed earth
stay."
On the grain-lands of the mainlands
Stands the serried corn like train-
bands.
Plume and pennon rustling gay ;
Out at sea, the islands wooded,
Silver birches, golden-hooded.
Set with maples, crimson-blooded.
White sea-foam and sand-hills gray,
Stretch away, far away.
Dim and dreamy, over-brooded
By the hazy autumn day.
Gayly chattering to the clattering
Of the brown nuts downward patter-
ing,
Leap the squirrels, red and gray.
On the grass-land, on the fallow.
Drop the apples, red and yellow ;
THE RANGER.
261
Drop the russet pears and mellow,
Drop the red leaves all the day.
And away, swift away,
Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow
Chasing, weave their web of play.
'' Martha Mason, Martha Mason,
Prithee tell us of the reason
Why you mope at home to-day :
Surely smiling is not sinning ;
Leave your quilling, leave your spin-
ning ;
What is all your store of linen,
If your heart is never gay?
Come away, come away !
Never yet did sad beginning
Make the task of life a play."
Overbending, till she's blending
With the flaxen skein she 's tending
Pale brown tresses smoothed away
f^rom her face of patient sorrow.
Sits she, seeking but to borrow.
From the trembling hope of morrow,
Solace for the weary day.
''Go your way, laugh and play ;
Unto Him who heeds the sparrow
And the lily, let me pray."
'' W^ith our rall}^, rings the valley, —
Join us! '' cried the blue-eyed Nelly ;
** Join us ! " cried the laughing May :
" To the beach we all are going.
And, to save the task of rowing,
West by north the wind is blowing,
Blowing briskly down the bay!
Come away, come away !
Time and tide are swiftly flowing,
Let us take them while we may !
^' Never tell us that you '11 fail us.
Where the purple beach-plum mellows
On the bluffs so wild and gray.
Hasten, for the oars are falling ;
Hark, our merry mates are calling :
Time it is that we were all in,
Singing tideward down the bay ! "
•' Nay, nay, let me stay ;
Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin
Is my heart," she said, " to-day."
" Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin!
Some red squaw his moose-meat's
broiling,
Or some French lass, singing gay ;
Just forget as he's forgetting;
What avails a life of fretting?
If some stars must needs be setting,
Others rise as good as they."
"' Cease, I pray ; go your way ! "
Martha cries, her eyelids wetting ;
'* Foul and false the words you
say! "
'' Martha Mason, hear to reason !
Prithee, put a kinder face on ! "
'' Cease to vex me," did she say ;
" Better at his side be lying,
With the mournful pine-trees sighing,
And the wild birds o'er us crying.
Than to doubt like mine a prey ;
While away, far away.
Turns my heart, forever trying
Some new hope for each new day.
" When the shadows veil the mead-
ows.
And the sunset's golden ladders
Sink from twilight's walls of gray, —
From the window of my dreaming,
I can see his sickle gleaming,
Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming
Down the locust-shaded way ;
But away, swift away.
Fades the fond, delusive seeming,
And I kneel again to pray.
And the barn-yard cock is crowing,
And the horned moon pales away :
From a dream of him awaking.
Every sound my heart is making
Seems a footstep of his taking ;
Then I hush the thought, and say,
' Nay, nay, he's away! '
Ah! my heart, my heart is breaking
For the dear one far away."
Look up, Martha! worn and swarthy,
Glows a face of manhood worthy :
'' Robert ! " ''Martha ! " all they say.
262
LATER rOEMS.
O'er went wheel and reel together,
Little cared the owner whither ;
Heart of lead is heart of feather,
Noon of night is noon of day!
Come away, come away!
When such lovers meet each other,
Why should prying idlers stay?
Quench the timber's fallen em-
bers,
Quench the red leaves in Decem-
ber's
Hoary rime and chilly spray.
But the hearth shall kindle clearer,
Household welcomes sound sincerer.
Heart to loving heart draw nearer,
When the bridal bells shall say :
" Hope and pray, trust alway ;
Life is sweeter, love is dearer,
For the trial and delay ! "
LATER POEMS, 1856-1857.
THE LAST W^ALK IN
AUTUMN.
O'er the bare w^oods, whose out-
stretched hands
Plead with the leaden heavens in
vain,
I see, beyond the valley lands,
The sea's- long level dim with
rain.
Around me all things, stark and
dumb,
Seem praying for the snows to
come,
And, for the summer bloom and
greenness gone,
With winter^s sunset lights and daz-
zlinoj morn atone.
Along the river's summer walk.
The withered tufts of asters nod ;
And trembles on its arid stalk
The hoar plume of the golden-
rod.
And on a ground of sombre fir,
And azure-studded juniper,
The silver birch its buds of purple
shows,
And scarlet berries tell where
bloomed the sweet wild-rose !
III.
With mingled sound of horns and
bells,
A far-heard clang, the wild geese
fly,
Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and
fells,
Like a great arrow through the
sky,
Two dusky lines converged in
one.
Chasing the southward-flying sun ;
While the brave snow-bird and the
hardy jay
Call to them from the pines, as if to
bid them stay.
IV.
I passed this way a year ago :
The wind blew south ; the noon
of day
Was warm as June's ; and save
that snow
Flecked the low mountains far
away.
And that the vernal-seeming breeze
Mocked faded grass and leafless
trees,
I might have dreamed of summer as
Hay,
Watching the fallen leaves with the
soft wind at play.
THE LAST WALK IN AU rUMN.
263
V.
Since then, the winter blasts have
piled
The white pagodas of the snow
On these rough slopes, and, strong
and wild,
Yon river, in its overflow
Of spring-time rain and sun, set free,
Crashed with its ices to the sea ;
And over these gray fields, then
green and gold,
The summer corn has waved, the
thunder^s organ rolled.
VI.
Rich gift of God ! A year of time!
What pomp of rise and shut of
day,
What hues wherewith our Northern
clime
Makes autumn^s dropping wood-
lands gay.
What airs outblown from ferny
dells.
And clover-bloom and sweetbrier
smells.
What songs of brooks and birds,
what fruits and flowers.
Green woods and moonlit snows,
have in its round been ours !
VII.
I know not how, in other lands,
The changing seasons come and
go;
What splendors fall on Syrian
sands.
What purple lights on Alpine
snow !
Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits
On Venice at her watery gates ;
A dream alone to me is Arno\s vale,
And the Alhambra's halls are but a
traveller's tale.
Yet, on life\s current, he who drifts
Is one with him who rows or
sails ;
And he who wanders widest lifts
No more of beauty's jealous
veils
Than he who from his doorway
sees
The miracle of flowers and trees.
Feels the warm Orient in the noon-
day air.
And from cloud minarets hears the
sunset call to prayer!
IX.
The eye may well be glad, that
looks
Where Pharpar's fountains rise
and fall ;
But he who sees his native brooks
Laugh in the sun, has seen them
all.
The marble palaces of Ind
Rise round him in the snow and
wind ;
From his lone sweetbrier Persian Ha-
fiz smiles.
And Rome's cathedral awe is in his
woodland aisles.
And thus it is my fancy blends
The near at hand and far and
rare ;
And while the same horizon bends
Above the silver-sprinkled hair
Which flashed the light of morning
skies
On childhood's wonder-lifted eyes.
Within its round of sea and sky and
field.
Earth wheels with all her zones, the
Kosmos stands revealed.
XI.
And thus the sick man on his bed,
The toiler to his task-work
bound.
Behold their prison-walls outspread.
Their clipped horizon widen
round !
264
LATER POEMS.
While freedom-giving fancy waits,
Like Peter''s angel at the gates,
The power is theirs to baffle care and
pain,
To bring the lost world back, and
make it theirs again !
XII.
What lack of goodly company,
When masters of the ancient lyre
Obey my call, and trace for me
Their words of mingled tears and
fire!
I talk with Bacon, grave and wise,
I read the world with Pascal's
eyes ;
And priest and sage, with solemn
brows austere,
And poets, garland-bound, the Lords
of Thought, draw near.
XIII.
Methinks, O friend, I hear thee
say,
"In vain the human heart we
mock ;
Bring living guests who love the
day.
Not ghosts who fly at crow of
cock!
The herbs we share with flesh and
blood,
Are better than ambrosial food.
With laurelled shades." I grant it,
nothing loath.
But doubly blest is he who can par-
take of both.
XIV.
He who might Plato's banquet
grace.
Have I not seen before me sit.
And watched his puritanic face.
With more than Eastern wisdom
lit?
Shrewd mystic! who, upon the
back
Of his Poor Richard's Almanack,
Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's
dream.
Links Menu's age of thought to Ful-
ton's age of steam !
XV.
Here too, of answering love secure.
Have I not welcomed to my
hearth
The gentle pilgrim troubadour.
Whose songs have girdled half
the earth ;
Whose pages, like the magic mat
Whereon the Eastern lover sat.
Have borne me over Rhine-land's
purple vines.
And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phry-
gia's mountain pines !
XVI.
And he, who to the lettered wealth
Of ages adds the lore unpriced,
The wisdom and the moral health,
The ethics of the school of
Christ ;
The statesman to his holy tmst.
As the Athenian archon, just.
Struck down, exiled like him for truth
alone,
Has he not graced my home with
beauty all his own?
XVII.
What greetings smile, what fare-
wells wave,
What loved ones enter and de-
part!
The good, the beautiful, the brave,
The Heaven-lent treasures of the
heart!
How conscious seems the frozen
sod
And beechen slope whereon they
trod!
The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry
grass bends
Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or
absent friends.
THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN.
265
XVIII.
Then ask not why to these bleak
hills
I cling, as clings the tufted moss,
To bear the winter's lingering chills.
The mocking spring's perpetual
loss.
I dream of lands where summer
smiles,
And soft winds blow from spicy
isles,
But scarce would Ceylon's breath of
flowers be swxet,
Could I not feel thy soil, New Eng-
land, at my feet !
At times I long for gentler skies,
And bathe in dreams of softer
air,
But homesick tears would fill the
eyes
That saw the Cross without the
Bear.
The pine must whisper to the palm,
The north-wind break the tropic
calm ;
And with the dreamy languor of the
Line,
The North's keen virtue blend, and
strength to beauty join.
XX.
Better to stem with heart and
hand
The roaring tide of life, than lie.
Unmindful, on its flowery strand,
Of God's occasions drifting by !
Better with naked nerve to bear
The needles of this goading air,
Than, in the lap of sensual ease,
forego
The godlike power to do, the godlike
aim to know.
XXI.
Home of my heart ! to me more
fair
Than gay Versailles or Windsor's
halls.
The painted, shingly town-house
where
The freeman's vote for Freedom
falls!
The simple roof where prayer is
made.
Than Gothic groin and colonnade ;
The living temple of the heart of
man,
Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or
many-spired Milan!
XXII.
More dear thy equal village
schools,
Where rich and poor the Bible
read.
Than classic halls where Priestcraft
, rules.
And Learning wears the chains
of Creed ;
Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering
in
The scattered sheaves of home and
kin.
Than the mad license following Len-
ten pains,
Or holidays of slaves who laugh and
dance in chains.
XXIII.
And sweet homes nestle in these
dales.
And perch along these wooded
swells ;
And, blest beyond Arcadian vales.
They hear the sound of Sabbath
bells !
Here dwells no perfect man sub-
lime.
Nor woman winged before her
time.
But with the faults and follies of th^
race.
Old home-bred virtues held their not
unhonored place.
266
LATER POEMS.
Here manhood struggles for the
sake
Of mother, sister, daughter, wife.
The graces and the loves which
make
The music of the march of life ;
And woman, in her daily round
Of duty, walks on holy ground.
No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor
here
Is the bad lesson learned at human
rights to sneer.
XXV.
Then let the icy north-wind blow
The trumpets of the coming
storm.
To arrowy sleet and blinding snow
Yon slanting lines of rain trans-
form.
Young hearts shall hail the drifted
cold.
As gayly as I did of old ;
And I, who watch them through the
frosty pane,
Unenvious, live in them my boyhood
o'er again.
XXVI.
And I will trust that He who heeds
The life that hides in mead and
wold.
Who hangs yon alder's crimson
beads,
And stains these mosses green
and gold.
Will still, as He hath done, incline
His gracious care to me and mine ;
Grant what we ask aright, from wrong
debar.
And, as the earth grows dark, make
brighter every star!
XXVII.
I have not seen, I may not see,
My hopes for man take form in
fact.
But God will give the victory
In due time ; in that faith I act.
And he who sees the future sure,
The baffling present may endure.
And bless, meanwhile, the unseen
Hand that leads
The heart's desires beyond the halt-
ing step of deeds.
XXVIII.
And thou, my song, I send thee
forth.
Where harsher songs of mine
have flown ;
Go, find a place at home and hearth
Where'er thy singer's name is
known ;
Revive for him the kindly thought
Of friends ; and they who love him
not.
Touched by some strain of thine, per-
chance may take
The hand he proffers all, and thank
him for thy sake.
THE MAYFLOWERS.
The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows
abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and
was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims
after their fearful winter.
Sad Mayflower! watched by winter
stars.
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars,
And leaves of frozen sails!
What had she in those dreary hours.
Within her ice-rimmed bay,
In common with the wild-wood
flowers,
The first sweet smiles of May?
Yet, "God be praised!" the Pilgrim
said.
Who saw the blossoms peer
Above the brown leaves, dry and
dead,
" Behold our Mayflower here ! "
r>URIAL OF BARBOUR.
267
" God wills it : here our rest shall be,
Our* years of wandering o'er,
For us the Mayflower of the sea.
Shall spread her sails no more."
O sacred flowers of faith and hope,
As sweetly now as then
Ye bloom on many a birchen slope.
In many a pine-dark glen.
Behind the sea-walPs rugged length,
Unchanged, your leaves unfold.
Like love behind the manly strength
Of the brave hearts of old.
So live the fathers in their sons,
Their sturdy faith be ours.
And ours the love that overruns
Its rocky strength with flowers.
The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day
Its shadow round us draws ;
The Mayflower of his stormy bay.
Our Freedom's struggling cause.
But warmer suns erelong shall bring
To life the frozen sod ;
And, through dead leaves of hope,
shall spring
Afresh the flowers of God !
BURIAL OF BARBOUR. '
Bear him, comrades, to his grave ;
Never over one more brave
Shall the prairie grasses weep.
In the ages yet to come,
When the millions in our room.
What we sow in tears, shall reap.
Bear him up the icy hill.
With the Kansas, frozen still
As his noble heart, below,
And the land he came to till
With a freeman's thews and will.
And his poor hut roofed with snow !
One more look of that dead face.
Of his murder's ghastly trace!
One more kiss, O widowed one!
Lay your left hands on his brow,
Lift your right hands up, and vow
That his work shall yet be done.
Patience, friends ! The eye of God
Every path by Murder trod
Watches, lidless, day and night ;
And the dead man in his shroud,
And his widow weeping loud.
And our hearts, are in his sight.
Every deadly threat that swells
With the roar of gambling hells,
Every brutal jest and jeer.
Every wicked thought and plan
Of the cruel heart of man.
Though but whispered. He can hear !
We in suffering, they in crime,
Wait the just award of time.
Wait the vengeance that is due ;
Not in vain a heart shall break,
Not a tear for Freedom's sake
Fall unheeded : God is true.
While the flag with stars bedecked
Threatens where it should protect,
And the Law shakes hands with
Crime,
WHiat is left us but to wait.
Match our patience to our fate.
And abide the better time?
Patience, friends! The human heart
Everywhere shall take our part,
Everywhere for us shall pray ;
On our side are nature's laws.
And God's life is in the cause
That we suffer for to-day.
Well to suffer is divine ;
Pass the watchword down the line,
Pass the countersign : " Endure."
Not to him who rashly dares,
But to him who nobly bears.
Is the victor's garland sure.
Frozen earth to frozen breast.
Lay our slain one down to rest ;
268
LATER POEMS.
Lay him down in hope and faith,
And above the broken sod,
Once again, to Freedom's God,
Pledge ourselves for life or death, —
That the State whose walls we lay,
In our blood and tears, to-day,
Shall be free from bonds of shame.
And our goodly land untrod
By the feet of Slavery, shod
With cursing as with flame !
Plant the Buckeye on his grave,
For the hunter of the slave
In its shadow cannot rest;
And let martyr mound and tree
Be our pledge and guaranty
Of the freedom of the West !
TO PENNSYLVANIA.
O State prayer-founded! never hung
Such choice upon a people's tongue,
Such power to bless or ban.
As that which makes thy whisper Fate,
For which on thee the centuries wait,
And destinies of man!
Across thy Alleghanian chain.
With groanings from a land in pain,
The west-wind finds its way :
Wild-wailing from Missouri's flood
The crying of thy children's blood
Is in thy ears to-day!
And unto thee in Freedom's hour
Of sorest need God gives the power
To ruin or to save ;
To wound or heal, to blight or bless
With fertile field or wilderness,
A free home or a grave !
Then let thy virtue match the crime,
Rise to a level with the time ;
And, if a son of thine
Betray or tempt thee, Brutus-like
For Fatherland and Freedom strike
As Justice gives the sign.
Wake, sleeper, from thy dream of ease,
The great occasion's forelock seize ;
And, let the north-wind strong.
And golden leaves of autumn, be
Thy coronal of Victory
And thy triumphal song.
loM mo., 1856.
THE PASS OF THE SIERRA.
All night above their rocky bed
They saw the stars march slow ;
The wild Sierra overhead.
The desert's death below.
The Indian from his lodge of bark,
Tlie gray bear from his den,
Beyond their camp-fire's wall of dark,
Glared on the mountain men.
Still upward turned, with anxious strain
Their leader's sleepless eye.
Where splinters of the mountain chain
Stood black against the sky.
The night waned slow : at last, a glow,
A gleam of sudden fire,
Shot up behind the walls of snow,
And tipped each icy spire.
" Up, men ! " he cried, " yon rocky
cone.
To-day, please God, we '11 pass,
And look from Winter's frozen throne
On Summer's flowers and grass ! "
They set their faces to the blast,
They trod the eternal snow.
And faint, worn, bleeding, hailed at last
The promised land below.
Behind, they saw the snow-cloud
tossed
By many an icy horn ;
Before, warm valleys, wc^od-embossed,
And green with vines and corn.
They left the Winter at their backs
To flap his baffled wing,
THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.
269
And downward, with the cataracts,
Leaped to the lap of Spring.
Strong leader of that mountain band.
Another task remains,
To break from Slavery's desert land
A path to Freedom's plains.
The winds are wild, the way is drear,
Yet, flashing through the night,
Lo ! icy ridge and rocky spear
Blaze out in morning light!
Rise up, Fremont! and go before;
The Hour must have its Man ;
Put on the hunting-shirt once more,
And lead in Freedom's van!
%th mo., 1856.
THE CONQUEST OF FIN-
LAND.
Across the frozen marshes
The winds of autumn blow,
And the fen-lands of the Wetter
Are white with early snow.
But where the low, gray headlands
Look o'er the Baltic brine,
A bark is sailing in the track
Of England's battle-line.
No wares hath she to barter
For Bothnia's fish and grain ;
She saileth not for pleasure,
She saileth not for gain.
But still by isle or main-land
She drops her anchor down,
Where'er the British cannon
Rained fire on tower and town.
Outspake the ancient Amtman,
At the gate of Helsingfors :
" Why comes this ship a-spying
In the track of Eno^land's wars? "
"God bless her,'' said the coast-
guard, —
" God bless the ship, I say.
The holy angels trim the sails
That speed her on her way !
*^ Where'er she drops her anchor,
The peasant's heart is glad ;
Where'er she spreads her parting sail,
The peasant's heart is sad.
'' Each wasted town and hairdet
She visits to restore ;
To roof the shattered cabin.
And feed the starving poor.
"The sunken boats of fishers.
The foraged beeves and grain.
The spoil of flake and storehouse,
The good ship brings again.
"And so to Finland's sorrow
The sweet amend is made,
As if the healing hand of Christ
Upon her wounds were laid!"
Then said the gray old Amtman,
'* The will of God be done!
The battle lost by England's hate,
By England's love is won !
" We braved the iron tempest
That thundered on our shore ;
But w^hen did kindness fail to find
The key to Finland's door?
" No more from Aland's ramparts
Shall warning signal come,
Nor startled Sweaborg hear again
The roll of midnight drum.
" Beside our fierce Black Eagle
The Dove of Peace shall rest ;
And in the mouths of cannon
The sea-bird make her nest.
" For Finland, looking seaward,
No coming foe shall scan ;
And the holy bells of Abo
Shall ring, ' Good-will to man ! '
270
LATER POEjMS.
"Then row thy boat, O fisher!
In peace on lake and bay ;
And thou, young maiden, dance
again
Around the poles of May!
" Sit down, old men, together,
Old wives, in quiet spin ;
Henceforth the Anglo-Saxon
Is the brother of the Finn! "
A LAY OF OLD TLME.
WRITTEN FOR THE ESSEX COUNTY
AGRICULTURAL FAIR.
One morning of the first sad Fall,
Poor Adam and his bride
Sat in the shade of Eden's wall —
But on the outer side.
She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit
For the chaste garb of old ;
He, sighing o'er his bitter fruit
For Eden's drupes of gold.
Behind them, smiUng in the morn,
Their forfeit garden lay,
Before them, wild with rock and
thorn.
The desert stretched away.
They heard the air above them
fanned,
A light step on the sward.
And lo! they saw before them stand
The angel of the Lord !
" Arise," he said, " why look behind,
When hope is all before.
And patient hand and willing mind.
Your loss may yet restore ?
" I leave with you a spell whose
power
Can make the desert glad.
And call around you fruit and flower
As fair as Eden had.
" I clothe your hands with power to
lift
Tlie curse from off your soil ;
Your very doom shall seem a gift,
Your loss a gain through Toil.
" Go, cheerful as yon humming-bees,
To labor as to play."
White glimmering over Eden^s trees
The angel passed away.
The pilgrims of the world went forth
Obedient to the word.
And found wherever they tilled the
earth
A garden of the Lord !
The thorn-tree cast its evil fruit
And blushed with plum and pear,
And seeded grass and trodden root
Grew sweet beneath their care.
We share our primal parents^ fate,
And in our turn and day.
Look back on Eden's sworded gate
As sad and lost as they.
But still for us his native skies
The pitying Angel leaves,
And leads through Toil to Paradise
New Adams and new Eves !
WHAT OF THE DAY?
A SOUND of tumult troubles all the
air.
Like the low thunders of a sultry
sky
Far-rolling ere the downright light-
nings glare ;
The hills blaze red with warnings ;
foes draw nigh.
Treading the dark with challenge
and reply.
Behold the burden of the prophet^s
vision, —
The gathering hosts, — the Valley of
Decision,
THE FIRST FLOWERS.
271
Dusk with the wings of eagles
wheeling o'er.
Day of the Lord, of darkness and not
hght!
It breaks in thunder and the whirl-
wind's roar!
Even so, Father! Let thy will be
done, —
Turn and overturn, end what thou
hast begun
In judgment or in mercy : as for me.
If but the least and frailest, let me be
Ever more numbered with the truly free
Who find thy service perfect liberty!
I fain would thank Thee that my mor-
tal life
Has reached the hour (albeit
through care and pain)
When Good and Evil, as for final
strife.
Close dim and vast on Armaged-
don's plain ;
And Michael and his angels once
again
Drive howling back the Spirits of
the Night.
O for the faith to read the signs
aright
And, from the angle of thy perfect
sight.
See Truth's white banner floating
on before ;
And the Good Cause, despite of
venal friends.
And base expedients, move to
noble ends ;
See Peace with Freedom make to
Time amends.
And, through its cloud of dust, the
threshing-floor.
Flailed by thy thunder, heaped
with chafidess grain !
1857.
THE FIRST FLOWERS.
For ages on our river borders.
These tassels in their tawny bloom.
And willowy studs of downy silver,
Have prophesied of Spring to come.
For ages have the unbound waters
Smiled on them from their pebbly
hem,
And the clear carol of the robin
And song of bluebird welcomed
them.
But never yet from smiling river.
Or song of early bird, have they
Been greeted with a gladder welcome
Than whispers from my heart to-
day
They break the spell of cold and
darkness.
The weary watch of sleepless pain ;
And from my heart, as from the river.
The ice of winter melts again.
Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood
token
Of Freya's footsteps drawing near ;
Almost, as in the rune of Asgard,
The growing of the grass 1 hear.
It is as if the pine-trees called me
From ceiled room and silent books.
To see the dance of woodland shad-
ows,
And hear the song of April brooks !
As in the old Teutonic ballad
Live singing bird and flowering
tree.
Together live in bloom and music,
I blend in song thy flowers and thee.
Earth's rocky tablets bear forever
The dint of rain and small bird's
track :
Who knows but that my idle verses
May leave some trace by Merrimack !
The bird that trod the mellow layers
Of the young earth is sought in
vain ;
The cloud is gone that wove the sand-
stone.
From God's design, with threads of
rain !
272
LATER rOEMS.
So, when this fluid age we live in
Shall stiffen round my careless
rhyme,
Who made the vagrant tracks may
puzzle
The savans of the coming time :
Andj following out their dim sugges-
tions,
Some idly-curious hand may draw
My doubtful portraiture, as Cuvier
Drew fish and bird from fin and
claw.
And maidens in the far-oif twilights,
Singing my words to breeze and
stream,
Shall wonder if the old-time Mary
Were real, or the rhymer's dream !
1st 2id 7/10., 1857.
MY NAMESAKE.
You scarcely need my tardy thanks.
Who, self-rewarded, nurse and
tend —
A green leaf on your own Green
Banks —
The memory of your friend.
For me, no wreath, bloom-woven,
hides
The sobered brow and lessening
hair :
For aught I know, the myrtled sides
Of Helicon are bare.
Their scallop-shells so many bring
The fabled founts of song to try.
They Ve drained, for aught I know,
the spring
Of Aganippe dry.
Ah well! — The wreath the Muses
braid
Proves often Folly's cap and bell ;
Methinks, my ample beaver's shade
May serve my turn as well.
Let Love's and Friendship's tender
debt
Be paid by those I love in life..
Why should the unborn critic whet
For me his scalping-knife ?
Why should the stranger peer and
pry
One's vacant house of life about,
And drag for curious ear and eye
His faults and follies out? —
Why stuff, for fools to gaze upon.
With chaff of words, the garlb he
wore.
As corn-husks w^hen the ear is gone
Are rustled all the more ?
Let kindly Silence close again,
The picture vanish from the eye,
And on the dim and misty main
Let the small ripple die.
Yet not the less I own your claim
To grateful thanks, dear friends of
mine.
Hang, if it please you so, my name
Upon your household line.
Let Fame from brazen lips blow wide
Her chosen names, I envy none :
A mother's love, a father's pride,
Shall keep alive my own!
Still shall that name as now recall
The young leaf wet with morning
dew.
The glory where the sunbeams fall
The breezy woodlands through.
That name shall be a household word,
A spell to waken smile or sigh ;
In many an evening prayer be heard
And cradle lullaby.
And thou, dear child, in riper days
When asked the reason of thy name,
Shalt answer : '' One 't were vain to
praise
Or censure bore the same.
MY NAMESAKE.
273
'' Some blamed him, some believed
him good, —
The truth lay doubtless 'twixt the
two, —
He reconciled as best he could
Old faith and fancies new.
" In him the grave and playful mixed.
And wisdom held with folly truce,
And Nature compromised betwixt
Good fellow and recluse.
"He loved his friends, forgave his
foes ;
And, if his words were harsh at
times.
He spared his fellow-men, — his blows
Fell only on their crimes.
" He loved the good and wise, but
found
His human heart to all akin
Who met him on the common ground
Of suffering and of sin.
^' Whatever his neighbors might endure
Of pain or grief his own became ;
For all the ills he could not cure
He held himself to blame.
'' His good was mainly an intent,
His evil not of forethought done ;
The work he wrought was rarely meant
Or finished as begun.
" 111 served his tides of feeling strong
To turn the common mills of use ;
And, over restless wings of song,
His birthright garb hung loose!
" His eye was beauty^s powerless slave,
And his the ear which discord
pains :
Few guessed beneath his aspect grave
What passions strove in chains.
" He had his share of care and pain.
No holiday was life to him ;
Still in the heirloom cup we drain
The bitter drop will swim.
"Yet Heaven was kind, and here a
bird
And there a flower beguiled his
way;
And, cool, in summer noons, he heard
The fountains plash and play.
" On all his sad or restless moods
The patient peace of Nature stole ;
The quiet of the fields and woods
Sank deep into his soul.
"He worshipped as his fathers did,
And kept the faith of childish
days.
And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid.
He loved the good old ways.
" The simple tastes, the kindly traits.
The tranquil air, and gentle speech,
The silence of the soul that waits
For more than man to teach.
"The cant of party, school, and sect.
Provoked at times his honest scorn,
And Folly, in its gray respect,
He tossed on satire's horn.
" But still his heart was full of awe
And reverence for all sacred things ;
And, brooding over form and law.
He saw the Spirit's wings!
" Life's mystery wrapt him like a
cloud ;
He heard far voices mock his own.
The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,
Long roll of waves unknown.
" The arrows of his straining sight
Fell quenched in darkness ; priest
and sage,
Like lost guides calling left and right.
Perplexed his doubtful age.
" Like childhood, listening for the
sound
Of its dropped pebbles in the well,
All vainly down the dark profound
His brief-lined plummet fell.
274
LATER POEMS.
" So, scattering flowers with pious
pains
On old beliefs, of later creeds.
Which claimed a place in Truth's
domains.
He asked the title-deeds.
^* He saw the old-time\s groves and
shrines
In the long distance fair and dim ;
And heard, like sound of far-ofif pines.
The century-mellowed hymn!
"He dared not mock the Dervish
whirl.
The Brahmin's rite, the Lama's
spell ;
God knew the heart : Devotion's
pearl
Might sanctify the shell.
" While others trod the altar stairs
He faltered like the publican ;
And, while they praised as saints, his
prayers
Were those of sinful man.
"For, awed by Sinai's Mount of Law,
The trembling faith alone sufficed,
That, through its cloud and flame, he
saw
The sweet, sad face of Christ! —
"And listening, with his forehead
bowed,
Heard the Divine compassion fill
The pauses of the trump and cloud
With whispers small and still.
"The words he spake, the thoughts
he penned.
Are mortal as his hand and brain,
But, if they served the Master's end,
He has not lived in vain ! "
Heaven make thee better than thy
name,
Child of my friends! — For thee I
crave
What riches never bought, nor fame
To mortal longing gave.
I pray the prayer of Plato old :
God make thee beautiful within,
And let thine eyes the good behold
In everything save sin!
Imagination held in check
To serve not rule thy poisdd mind ;
Thy Reason, at the frown or beck
Of Conscience, loose or bind.
No dreamer thou, but real all, —
Strong manhood crowning vigorous
youth ;
Life made by duty epical
And rhythmic with the truth.
So shall that life the fruitage yield
WHiich trees of healing only give.
And green-leafed in the Eternal field
Of God, forever live!
THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.
275
HOME BALLADS, i860.
I CALL the old time back : I bring these lays
To thee, in memory of the summer days
When, by our native streams and forest ways,
We dreamed them over ; while the rivulets made
Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid
On warm noon-lights the masses of their shade.
And she was with us, living o'er again
Her life in ours, despite of years and pain, —
The autumn's brightness after latter rain.
Beautiful in her holy peace as one
Who stands, at evening, when the work is done,
Glorified in the setting of the sun!
Her memory makes our common landscape seem
Fairer than any of which painters dream.
Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream ;
For she whose speech was always truth's pure gold
Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told.
And loved with us the beautiful and old.
THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.
It was the pleasant harvest time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load.
And the old swallow-haunted barns —
Brown-gabled, long, and full of
seams
Through which the moted sunlight
streams.
And winds blow freshly in, to shake
The red plumes of the roosted
cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented
locks —
Are filled with summer's ripened
stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves.
From their low scaffolds to their
On Esek Harden's oaken floor.
With many an autumn threshing
worn.
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked
corn.
And thither came young men and
maids.
Beneath a moon that, large and low.
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.
They took their places ; some by
chance,
And others by a merry voice
Or sweet smile guided to their
choice.
276
HOME BALLADS.
How pleasantly the rising moon.
Between the shadows of the mows,
Looked on them through the great
elm-boughs ! —
On sturdy boyhood sun-embrowned,
On girlhood with its solid curves
Of healthful strength and painless
nerves !
And jests went round, and laughs that
made
The house-dog answer with his
how^l,
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ;
And quaint old songs their fathers
sung.
In Derby dales and Yorkshire
moors,
Ere Norman William trod their
shores ;
And tales, whose merry license shook
The fat sides of the Saxon thane,
Forgetful of the hovering Dane!
But still the sweetest voice was mute
That river-valley ever heard
From lip of maid or throat of bird ;
For Mabel Martin sat apart,
And let the hay-mow"s shadow fall
Upon the loveliest face of all.
She sat apart, as one forbid.
Who knew that none would con-
descend
To own the Witch-wife's child a
friend.
The seasons scarce had gone their
round,
Since curious thousands thronged
to see
Her mother on the gallows-tree ;
And mocked the palsied limbs of age,
That faltered on the fatal stairs,
And wan lip trembHng with its
prayers !
Few questioned of the sorrowing child,
Or, when they saw the mother die,
Dreamed of the daughter's agony.
They WTnt up to their homes that day,
As men and Christians justified :
God wdlled it, and the wretch had
died!
Dear God and Father of us all.
Forgive our faith in cruel lies, —
Forgive the blindness that denies!
Forgive thy creature when he takes,
For the all-perfect love thou art.
Some grim creation of his heart.
Cast down our idols, overturn
Our bloody altars ; let us see
Thyself in thy humanity!
Poor Mabel from her mother's grave
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone,
And wrestled with her fate alone ;
W^ith love, and anger, and despair,
The phantoms of disordered sense,
The awful doubts of Providence!
The school-boys jeered her as they
passed.
And, when she sought the house of
prayer.
Her mother's curse pursued her
there.
And still o'er many a neighboring
door
She saw the horseshoe's curved
charm.
To guard against her mother's
harm ; —
That mother, poor, and sick, and lame,
Who daily, by the old arm-chair.
Folded her withered hands in
prayer ; —
THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER.
277
Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail.
Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er,
When her dim eyes could read no
more!
Sore tried and pained, the poor girl
kept
Her faith, and trusted that her
way,
So dark, would somewhere meet the
day.
And still her weary wheel went round
Day after day, with no relief;
Small leisure have the poor for
grief.
So in the shadow Mabel sits ;
Untouched by mirth she sees and
hears.
Her smile is sadder than her tears.
But cruel eyes have found her out.
And cruel lips repeat her name.
And taunt her with her mother's
shame.
She answered not with railing words.
But drew her apron o'er her face.
And, sobbing, glided from the place.
And only pausing at the door,
Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze
Of one who, in her better days,
Had been her warm and steady friend,
Ere yet her mother's doom had
made
Even Esek Harden half afraid.
He felt that mute appeal of tears,
And, starting, with an angry frown
Hushed all the wicked murmurs
down.
" Good neighbors mine,'' he sternly
said,
" This passes harmless mirth or
jest ;
I brook no insult to my guest.
'^ She is indeed her mother's child ;
But God's sweet pity ministers
Unto no whiter soul than hers.
^' Let Goody Martin rest in peace ;
I never knew her harm a fly.
And witch or not, God knows, —
not L
^' I know who swore her life away ;
And, as God lives, I 'd not con-
demn
An Indian dog on word of them."
The broadest lands in all the town,
The skill to guide, the power- to
awe,
Were Harden's ; and his word was
law.
None dared withstand him to his face.
But one sly maiden spake aside :
^' The little witch is evil-eyed !
'' Her mother only killed a cow.
Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ;
But she, forsooth, must charm a
man ! "
Poor Mabel, in her lonely home.
Sat by the window's narrow pane.
White in the moonlight's silver
The river, on its pebbled rim,
Made music such as childhood
knew ;
The door-yard tree was whispered
through
By voices such as childhood's ear
Had heard in moonlights long
ago;
And through the willow-boughs
below
She saw the rippled waters shine ;
Beyond, in waves of shade and
light
The hills rolled off into the nio^ht.
278
HOME BALLADS.
Sweet sounds and pictures mocking so
The sadness of her human lot.
She saw and heard, but heeded not.
She strove to drown her sense of
wrong,
And, in her old and simple way,
To teach her bitter heart to pray.
Poor child ! the prayer, begun in faith.
Grew to a low, despairing cry
Of utter misery : '' Let me die !
" Oh ! take me from the scornful eyes
And hide me where the cruel
speech
And mocking finger may not
reach !
" I dare not breathe my mother's
name :
A daughter's right I dare not crave
To weep above her unblest grave!
" Let me not live until my heart.
With few to pity, and with none
To love me, hardens into stone.
'^O God! have mercy on thy child.
Whose faith in thee grows weak
and small.
And take me ere I lose it all ! "
A shadow on the moonlight fell,
And murmuring wind and wave be-
came
A voice whose burden was her
name.
Had then God heard her? Had he
sent
His angel down? In flesh and
blood.
Before her Esek Harden stood!
He laid his hand upon her arm :
"Dear Mabel, this no more shall
be ;
Who scoffs at you, must scoff at
me.
'^ You know rough Esek Harden
well ;
And if he seems no suitor gay,
And if his hair is touched with
gray,
" The maiden grown shall never find
His heart less warm than when she
smiled,
Upon his knees, a little child! "
Her tears of grief w^ere tears of joy.
As, folded in his strong embrace.
She looked in Esek Harden's face.
" O truest friend of all ! '' she said,
'^ God bless you for your kindly
thought.
And make me worthy of my lot ! "
He led her through his dewy fields.
To where the swinging lanterns
glowed,
And through the doors the buskers
showed.
" Good friends and neighbors ! '' Esek
said,
" I 'm weary of this lonely life ;
In Mabel see my chosen wife!
" She greets you kindly, one and all ;
The past is past, and all offence
Falls harmless from her innocence.
" Henceforth she stands no more
alone ;
You know what Esek Harden
is : —
He brooks no wrong to him or his."
Now let the merriest tales be told,
And let the sweetest songs be sung
That ever made the old heart
young !
For now the lost has found a home ;
And a lone hearth shall brighter
burn,
As all the household joys return!
THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.
279
O, pleasantly the harvest-moon,
l^etvveen the shadow of the mows,
Looked on them through the great
elm-bouo:hs !
On MabePs curls of golden hair,
On Esek's shaggy strength it fell ;
And the wind whispered, " It is
well!"
THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.
From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span
Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann.
Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide glimmering down,
And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient fishing-town.
Long has passed the summer morning, and its memory waxes old.
When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled.
Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool.
And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul!
With the memory of that morning by the summer sea I blend
A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather penned,
In that quaint Magiialia Christi,, with all strange and marvellous things,
Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos Ovid sings.
Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old.
Inward, grand with a\ve and reverence ; outward, mean and coarse and cofd ;
Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay,
Golden threads of romance weaving in a web of hodden gray.
The great eventful Present hides the Past ; but through the din
Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in ;
And the lore of home and fireside, and the legendary rhyme.
Make the task of duty lighter which the true man owes his time.
So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter knew.
When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's moorland graveyards through.
From the graves of old traditions I part the blackberry-vines.
Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch the faded lines.
Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse with rolling pebbles, ran.
The garrison-house stood watching on the gray rocks of Cape Ann ;
On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade,
And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight overlaid.
On his slow round walked the sentry, south and eastward looking forth
O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers stretching north, —
Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, with bush and tree,
Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty sea.
28o HOME BALLADS.
Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying brands,
Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in their hands ;
On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared,
And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard to beard.
Long they sat and talked together, — talked of wizards Satan-sold ;
Of all ghostly sights and noises, — signs and wonders manifold ;
Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men in her shrouds,
Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning clouds ;
Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of Gloucester woods,
Full of plants that love the summer, — blooms of warmer latitudes ;
Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery vines.
And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight of the pines!
But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky tones of fear.
As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil near ;
Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun ;
Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals run!
Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from the midnight wood they
came, —
Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, its volleyed flame;
Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or lost in air,
All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit sands lay bare.
Midnight came ; from out the forest moved a dusky mass that soon
Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching in the moon.
^'Ghosts or witches," said the captain, "thus I foil the Evil One!"
And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down his gun.
Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded wall about ;
Once again the levelled muskets through the palisades flashed out,
With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top might not shun,
Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant wing to the sun.
Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless shower of lead.
With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the phantoms fled ;
Once again, without a shadow on the sands the moonlight lay,
And the white smoke curling through it drifted slowly down the bay!
" God preserve us! " said the captain ; " never mortal foes were there ;
They have vanished with their leader. Prince and Power of the air!
Lay aside your useless weapons ; skill and prowess naught avail ;
They who do the DeviPs service wear their master's coat of mail!"
So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again a warning call
Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round the dusky hall :
And they looked to flint and priming, and they longed for break of day ;
But the captain closed his Bible : " Let us cease from man, and pray 1 "
THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.
281
To the men who went before us, all the unseen powers seemed near,
And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots in holy fear.
Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed and bare,
Every stout knee pressed the fiag-stones, as the captain led in prayer.
Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres round the wall,
But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and hearts of all, —
Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish ! Never after mortal man
Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the block-house of Cape Ann.
So to us who walk in summer through the cool and sea-blown town,
From the childhood of its people comes the solemn legend down.
Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral lives the youth
And the fitness and the freshness of an undecaying truth.
Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres of the mind.
Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the darkness undefined ;
Round us throng the grim projections of the heart and of the brain,
And our pride of strength is weakness, and the cunning hand is vain.
In the dark we cry like children ; and no answer from on high
Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white wings downward fly ;
But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith, and not to sight,
And our prayers themselves drive backward all the spirits of the night!
THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL
SEWALL.
1697.
Up and down the village streets
Strange are the forms my fancy
meets,
For the thoughts and things of to-day
are hid,
And through the veil of a closed lid
The ancient worthies I see again :
I hear the tap of the elder's cane.
And his awful periwig I see.
And the silver buckles of shoe and
knee.
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air.
His black cap hiding his whitened
hair,
Walks the Judge of the great Assize,
Samuel Sewall the good and wise.
His face with lines of firmness
wrought.
He wears the look of a man unbought.
Who swears to his hurt and changes
not ;
Yet, touched and softened nevertheless
With the grace of Christian gentleness,
The face that a child would climb to
kiss!
True and tender and brave and just,
That man might honor and woman
trust.
Touching and sad, a tale is told,
Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist
old,
Of the fast which the good man life-
long kept
With a haunting sorrow that never
slept.
As the circling year brought round
the time
Of an error that left the sting of
crime.
When he sat on the bench of the
witchcraft courts,
282
HOME BALLADS.
With the laws of Moses and Hale's
Reports,
And spake, in the name of both, the
word
That gave the witch's neck to the
cord,
And piled the oaken planks that
pressed
The feeble life from the warlock's
breast!
All the day long, from dawn to dawn,
His door was bolted, his curtain
drawn ;
No foot on his silent threshold trod,
No eye looked on him save that of
God,
As he baffled the ghosts of the dead
with charms
Of penitent tears, and prayers, and
psalms,
And, with precious proofs from the
sacred word
Of the boundless pity and love of the
Lord,
His faith confirmed and his trust re-
newed
That the sin of his ignorance, sorely
rued,
Might be washed away in the mingled
flood
Of his human sorrow and Christ's
dear blood!
Green forever the memory be
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy,
Whom even his errors glorified.
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side
By the cloudy shadows which o'er it
glide!
Honor and praise to the Puritan
Who the halting step of his age out-
ran,
And, seeing the infinite worth of man
In the priceless gift the Father gave.
In the infinite love that stooped to
save.
Dared not brand his brother a slave !
'ho doth sue
wont to say.
In his own quaint, picture-loving way.
'' Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade
Which God shall cast down upon his
head ! "
Widely as heaven and hell, contrast
That brave old jurist of the past
And the cunning trickster and knave
of courts^
Who the holy features of Truth dis-
torts, —
Ruling as right the will of the strong,
Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong;
Wide-eared to power, to the wronged
and weak
Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek ;
Scoffing aside at party's nod
Order of nature and law of God ;
For whose dabbled ermine respect
were waste.
Reverence folly, and awe misplaced ;
Justice of whom 't were vain to seek
As from Koordish robber or Syrian
Sheik!
O, leave the wretch to his bribes and
sins ;
Let him rot in the web of lies he
spins !
To the saintly soul of the early day.
To the Christian judge, let us turn
and say :
" Praise and thanks for an honest
man ! —
Glory to God for the Puritan! "
I see, far southward, this quiet day.
The hills of Newbury rolHng away,
With the many tints of the season
gay,
Dreamily blending in autumn mist
Crimson, and gold, and amethyst.
Long and low, with dwarf trees
crowned.
Plum Island lies, like a whale
aground,
A stone's toss over the narrow sound.
Inland, as far as the eye can go.
The hills curve round like a bended
bow ;
A silver arrow from out them sprung,
I see the shine of the Quasycung ;
THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL.
283
And, round and round, over valley and
hill,
Old roads winding, as old roads will,
Here to a ferry, and there to a mill ;
And glimpses of chimneys and gabled
eaves.
Through green elm arches and maple
leaves, —
Old homesteads sacred to all that can
Gladden or sadden the heart of
man, —
Over whose thresholds of oak and
stone
Life and Death have come and gone!
There pictured tiles in the fireplace
show,
Great beams sag from the ceiling low,
The dresser glitters wdth polished
wares,
The long clock ticks on the foot-worn
stairs.
And the low, broad chimney shows
the crack
By the earthquake made a century
back.
Up from their midst springs the vil-
lage spire
With the crest of its cock in the sun
afire ;
Beyond are orchards and planting
lands.
And great salt marshes and glimmer-
ing sands,
And, where north and south the coast-
lines ^run,
The blink of the sea in breeze and sun !
I see it all like a chart unrolled.
But my thoughts are full of the past
and old,
I hear the tales of my boyhood told ;
And the shadows and shapes of early
days
Flit dimly by in the veiling haze,
With measured movement and rhyth-
mic chime
Weaving like shuttles my web of
rhyme.
I think of the old man wise and
good
Who once on yon misty hillsides
stood,
(A poet who never measured rhyme,
A seer unknown to his dull-eared
time,)
And, propped on his staff of age,
looked down,
W^ith his boyhood's love, on his native
town,
Where, written, as if on its hills and
plains.
His burden of prophecy yet remains.
For the voices of wood, and wave, and
wind
To read in the ear of the musing
mind : —
" As long as Plum Island, to guard
the coast
As God appointed, shall keep its
post ;
As long as a salmon shall haunt the
deep
Of Merrimack River, or sturgeon leap ;
As long as pickerel swift and shm,
Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond
swim ;
As long as the annual sea-fowl know
Their time to come and their time to
go;
As long as cattle shall roam at will
The green, grass meadows by Turkey
Hill ;
As long as sheep shall look from the
side
Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide.
And Parker River, and salt-sea tide ;
As long as a wandering pigeon shall
search
The fields below from his white-oak
perch.
When the barley-harvest is ripe and
shorn,
And the dry husks fall from the stand-
ing corn ;
As long as Nature shall not grow old,
Nor drop her work from her doting
hold.
And her care for the Indian corn for-
get,
284
HOME BALLADS.
And the yellow rows in pairs to set; —
So long shall Christians here be born,
Grow up and ripen as God's sweet
corn ! —
By the beak of bird, by the breath of
frost
Shall never a holy ear be lost.
But, husked by Death in the Planter's
sight,
Be sown ao^ain in the fields of lio:ht ! "
The Island still is purple with plums,
Up the river the salmon comes,
The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl
feeds
On hillside berries and marish
seeds, —
All the beautiful signs remain,
From spring-time sowing to autumn
rain
The good man's vision returns again !
And let us hope, as, well we can.
That the Silent Angel who garners
man
May find some grain as of old he
found
In the human cornfield ripe, and
sound,
And the Lord of the Harvest deign
to own
The precious seed by the fathers
sown !
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
Of all the rides since the birth of
time.
Told in story or sung in rhyme, —
On Apuleius's Golden Ass,
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass.
Witch astride of a human hack,
Islam's prophet on Al-Bordk, —
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart.
Tarred and feathered and carried
in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Body of turkey, head of owl.
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane.
Shouting and singing the shrill re-
frain :
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd
horrt,
Torr"d an' futherr^d an' corr'd in
a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead ! "
Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips.
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips.
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
Bacchus round some antique vase,
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare.
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair.
With conch-shells blowing and fish-
horns' twang,
Over and over the Maenads sang :
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd
horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a
corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead I "
Small pity for him! — He sailed away
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur
Bay,-
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
With his own town's-people on her
deck!
"Lay by! lay by!" they called to
him.
Back he answered, " Sink or swim!
Brag of your catch of fish again ! "
And off he sailed through the fog and
rain !
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart.
Tarred and feathered and carried in
a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur
That wreck shall lie forevermore.
Mother and sister, wife and maid,
TELLING THE BEES.
2S5
Looked. from the rocks of Marblehead
Over the moaning and rainy sea, —
Looked for the coming that might not
be!
What did the ^vinds and the sea-birds
say
Of the cruel captain who sailed
away ? —
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard
heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried
in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Through the street, on either side.
Up flew windows, doors swung wide ;
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives
gray.
Treble lent the fish-horn\s bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground.
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and
cane.
And cracked with curses the hoarse
refrain :
"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd
horrt,
Torrd an' futherf d an' corr'd in a
corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"
Sweetly along the Salem road
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew
Of the fields so green and the sky so
blue.
Riding there in his sorry trim,
Like an Indian idol glum and grim.
Scarcely he seemed the sound to
hear
Of voices shouting, far and near :
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd
horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a
corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead ! "
"' Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he
cried, —
"What to me is this noisy ride?
What is the shame that clothes the
skin
To the nameless horror that lives
within?
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck.
And hear a cry from a reeling deck !
Hate me and curse me, — I only dread
The hand of God and the face of the
dead!"
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard
heart.
Tarred and feathered and carried
in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
Then the wife of the skipper lost at
sea
Said, "God has touched him! — why
should w^e ? "
Said an old wife mourning her only
son,
" Cut the rogue's tether and let him
run!"
So with soft relentings and rude
excuse.
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him
loose.
And gave him a cloak to hide him in.
And left him alone with his shame
and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard
heart.
Tarred and feathered and carried
in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!
TELLING THE BEES.
Here is the place ; right over the hill
Runs the path I took ;
You can see the gap in the old wall
still.
And the stepping-stones in the
shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-
barred.
And the poplars tall ;
286
HOME BALLADS.
And the barn's brown length, and the
The barn's brown gable, the vine by
cattle-yard.
the door, —
And the white horns tossing above
Nothing changed but the hives of
the wall.
bees.
There are the beehives ranged in the
Before them, under the garden wall.
sun ;
Forw^ard and back,
And down by the brink
Went drearily singino: the chore-sfirl
Of the brook ' are her poor flowers,
small.
weed-o'errun,
Draping each hive with a shred of
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
black.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
Trembling, I listened: the summer
Heavy and slow ;
sun
And the same rose blows, and the
Had the chill of snow ;
same sun glows,
For I knew she was teUing the bees
And the same brook sings of a year
of one
ago.
Gone on the journey we all must go !
There's the same sweet clover-smell
Then I said to myself, "My Mary
in the breeze;
weeps
And the June sun warm
For the dead to-day :
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees.
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
The fret and the pain of his age
away."
I mind me how with a lover's care
From my Sunday coat
But her dog whined low ; on the door-
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed
way sill.
my hair,
With his cane to his chin,
And cooled at the brookside my
The old man sat ; and the chore-girl
brow and throat.
still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.
Since we parted, a month had
passed, —
And the song she was singing ever
To love, a year ;
since
Down through the beeches I looked
In my ear sounds on : —
at last
" Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not
On the little red gate and the well-
hence !
sweep near.
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
I can see it all now, — the slantwise
rain
THE SYCAMORES.
Of light through the leaves.
The sundown's blaze on her window-
In the outskirts of the village.
pane.
On the river's winding shores.
The bloom of her roses under the
Stand the Occidental plane-trees,
eaves.
Stand the ancient sycamores.
Just the same as a month before, —
One long century hath been numbered,
The house and the trees,
And another half-way told,
THE SYCAMORES.
287
Since the rustic Irish gleeman
Broke for them the virgin mould.
Deftly set to Celtic music.
At his violin's sound they grew,
Through the moonlit eves of summer,
Making Amphion's fable true.
Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant!
Pass in jerkin green along,
With thy eyes brimful of laughter.
And thy mouth as full of song.
Pioneer of Erin's outcasts,
With his fiddle and his pack ;
Little dreamed the village Saxons
Of the myriads at his back.
How he wrought with spade and fiddle.
Delved by day and sang by night,
With a hand that never wearied,
And a heart forever light, —
Still the gay tratlition mingles
With a record grave and drear,
Like the rolic air of Cluny,
With the solemn march of Mear.
When the box-tree, white with blos-
soms.
Made the sweet May woodlands
glad, .
And the Aronia by the river
Lighted up the swarming shad,
And the bulging nets swept shore-
ward,
With their silver-sided haul.
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,
He was merriest of them all.
When, among the jovial buskers.
Love stole in at Labor's side
With the lusty airs of England,
Soft his Celtic measures vied.
Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake.
And the merry fair's carouse ;
Of the wild Red Fox of Erin
And the Woman of Three Cows,
By the blazing hearths of winter,
Pleasant seemed his simple tales,
Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends
And the mountain myths of Wales.
How the souls in Purgatory
Scrambled up from fate forlorn.
On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder,
Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.
Of the fiddler who at Tara
Played all night to ghosts of kings ;
Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies
Dancing in their Moorland rings !
J oiliest of our birds of singing.
Best he loved the Bob-o-link.
" Hush ! " he 'd say, " the tipsy fairies !
Hear the little folks in drink ! "
Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle.
Singing through the ancient town,
Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant,
Hath Tradition handed down.
Not a stone his grave discloses ;
But if yet his spirit walks,
'T is beneath the trees he planted.
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks ;
Green memorials of the gleeman !
Linking still the river-shores.
With their shadows cast by sunset.
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!
When the Father of his Country
Through the north-land riding
came.
And the roofs were starred with
banners,
And the steeples rang acclaim, —
When each war-scarred Continental,
Leaving smithy, mill, and farm,
Waved his rusted sword in welcome.
And shot off his old king's arm, —
Slowly passed that august Presence
Down the thronged and shouting
street ;
288
HOME BALLADS.
Village girls as white as angels,
Scattering flowers around his feet.
Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow
Deepest fell, his rein he drew ;
On his stately head, uncovered,
Cool and soft the west-wind blew.
And he stood up in his stirrups.
Looking up and looking down
On the hills of Gold and Silver
Rimming round the little town, —
On the river, full of sunshine.
To the lap of greenest vales
Winding down from wooded head-
lands.
Willow-skirted, white with sails.
And he said, the landscape sweep-
ing
Slowly with his ungloved hand,
'^ I have seen no prospect fairer
In this goodly Eastern land. "
Then the bugles of his escort
Stirred to life the cavalcade :
And that head, so bare and stately,
Vanished down the depths of
shade.
Ever since, in town and farm-house.
Life has had its ebb and flow ;
Thrice hath passed the human har-
vest
To its garner green and low.
But the trees the gleeman planted,
Through the changes, changeless
stand ;
As the marble calm of Tadmor
Marks the desert's shifting sand.
Still the level moon at rising
Silvers o'er each stately shaft ;
Still beneath them, half in shadow.
Singing, glides the pleasure craft.
Still beneath them, arm-enfolded.
Love and Youth together stray ;
While, as heart to heart beats faster,
More and more their feet delay.
Where. the ancient cobbler, Keezar,
On the open hillside wrought,
Singing, as he drew his stitches.
Songs his German masters taught, —
Singing, with his gray hair floating
Round his rosy ample face, —
Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen
Stitch and hammer in his place.
All the pastoral lanes so grassy
Now are Traffic's dusty streets ;
From the village, grown a city.
Fast the rural grace retreats.
But, still green, and tall, and stately,
On the river's winding shores.
Stand the Occidental plane-trees.
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores.
THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE
OF NEWBURY.
" Concerning y^ Amphisbaena, as soon as
I received your commands, I made diligent
inquiry: . . . . he assures me yt it had really
two heads, one at each end ; two mouths,
two stings or tongues." — Rev. CHRISTO-
PHER ToppAN to Cotton Mather.
Far away in the twilight time
Of every people, in every clime.
Dragons and griffins and monsters
dire.
Born of water, and air, and fire.
Or nursed, like the Python, in the
mud
And ooze of the old Deucalion flood,
Crawl and wriggle and foam with
rage.
Through dusk tradition and ballad
age.
So from the childhood of Newbury
town
And its time of fable the tale comes
down
THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY.
289
Of a terror which haunted bush and
brake,
The Amphisbaena, the Double Snake!
Thou who makest the tale thy mirth,
Consider that strip of Christian earth
On the desolate shore of a sailless
sea,
Full of terror and mystery,
Half-redeemed from the evil hold
Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and
old.
Which drank with its lips of leaves
the dew
When Time was young, and the
world was new.
And wove its shadows with sun and
moon.
Ere the stones of Cheops were squared
and hewn.
Think of the sea's dread monotone.
Of the mournful wail from the pine-
wood blown.
Of the strange, vast splendors that lit
the North,
Of the troubled throes of the quaking
earth.
And the dismal tales the Indian told.
Till the settler's heart at his hearth
grew cold,
And he shrank from the tawny wizard's
boasts,
And the hovering shadows seemed
full of ghosts.
And above, below, and on every side,
The fear of his creed seemed veri-
fied;—
And think, if his lot were now thine
own.
To grope with terrors nor named nor
known.
How laxer muscle and weaker nerve
And a feebler faith thy need might
serve ;
And own to thyself the wonder more
That the snake had two heads, and
not a score !
Whether he lurked in the Oldtown
fen
Or the gray earth-flax of the DeviPs
Den,
Or swam in the wooded Artichoke,
Or coiled by the Northman's Written
Rock,
Nothing on record is left to show ;
Only the fact that he lived, we know,
And left the cast of a double head
In the scaly mask which he yearly
shed.
For he carried a head where his tail
should be.
And the two, of course, could never
agree,
But wriggled about with main and
might,
Now to the left and now to the right ;
Pulling and twisting this way and that,
Neither knew what the other was at.
A snake with two heads, lurking so
near! —
Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear!
Think what ancient gossips might say.
Shaking their heads in their dreary
way.
Between the meetings on Sabbath-
day!
How urchins, searching at day's de-
cline
The Common Pasture for sheep or
kine.
The terrible double-ganger heard
In leafy rustle or whir of bird !
Think what a zest it gave to the sport,
In berry-time, of the younger sort.
As over pastures blackberry-twined,
Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind,
And closer and closer, for fear of
harm.
The maiden clung to her lover's arm ;
And how the spark, who was forced
to stay.
By his sweetheart's fears, till the break
of day.
Thanked the snake for the fond delay !
Far and wide the tale was told.
Like a snowball growing while it
rolled.
290
HOME BALLADS.
The nurse hushed with it the baby's
cry;
And it sened, in the worthy minister s
eye.
To paint the primitive serpent by.
Cotton Mather came galloping down
All the way to Newbur}- tow n.
With his eyes agog and his ears set
wide.
And his marvellous inkhom at his
side;
Stirring the whfle in the shallow pool
Of his brains for the lore he learned
at school.
To garnish the story, with here a streak
Of Latin, and there another of Greek :
And the tales he heard and the notes
he took,
Behold ! are thev not in his Wonder-
Book?
Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill.
If the snake does not, the tale runs
still
In B\l5e]d Meadows, on Pipestave
Hill.
And still, whenever husband and wife
Publish the shame of their daily strife.
And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and
strain ^
At either end of the marriage-chain.
The gossips say, with a knowing shake
Of their gray heads, '^Look at the
Double Snake!
One in body and two in will.
The Amphisbaena is living still !"
THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY.
When the reaper s task was ended, and the summer wearing late.
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children dght.
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop ** Watch and Wait.^
Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow smnmer-mom.
With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-bom.
And the homesteads like green islands amid a sea of com.
Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided creeks between.
And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green ; —
A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes had never seen.
Yet away sailed Parson Avery^ away where duty led.
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread
To the souls of fishers starring on the rocks of Marblehead.
All day they sailed : at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died.
The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied.
And hi and low the thunder of tempest prophesied!
Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand ;
Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand.
And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land.
And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore :
*• Never heed, my little children ! Christ is walking on before
To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more."
THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. 291
All at' once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside,
To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide ;
And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide.
There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man^s despair,
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare,
And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery^s prayer.
From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast.
On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed.
Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast.
There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind :
" All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind ;
Not for life I ask, but only for the rest thy ransomed find!
"In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy word! —
Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard ! —
Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord!
"' In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin.
And let me follow up to thee my household and my kin!
Open the sea-gate of thy heaven, and let me enter in! "
When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near,
And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear
How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear.
The ear of God was open to his servant's last request ;
As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed.
And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest.
There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks of Marblehead ;
In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read;
And long, by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead.
And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall.
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall.
When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery's Fall !
THE TRUCE OF PISCATAOUA. ! Where, moved like living shuttles,
dwell
1675.
Raze these long blocks of brick and
stone,
These huge mill-monsters overgrown ;
Blot out the humbler piles as well,
The weaving genii of the bell :
Tear from the wild Cocheco's track
The dams that hold its torrents back ;
And let the loud-rejoicing fall
Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall :
And let the Indian's paddle play
292
HOME BALLADS.
On the unbridged Piscataqua!
Wide over hill and valley spread
Once more the forest, dusk and
dread,
With here and there a clearing cut
From the walled shadows round it
shut ;
Each with its farm-house builded
rude.
By English yeoman squared and
hewed,
And the grim, flankered block-house
bound
With bristling palisades around.
So, haply, shall before thine eyes
The dusty veil of centuries rise,
The old, strange scenery overlay
The tamer pictures of to-day,
While, like the actors in a play,
Pass in their ancient guise along
The figures of my border song :
What time beside Cocheco's flood
The white man and the red man
stood.
With words of peace and brother-
hood ;
When passed the sacred calumet
From lip to lip with fire-draught wet,
And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's
smoke
Through the gray beard of Waldron
broke.
And Squando^s voice, in suppliant
plea
For mercy, struck the haughty key
Of one who held, in any fate.
His native pride inviolate!
" Let your ears be opened wide !
He who speaks has never lied.
Waldron of Piscataqua,
Hear. what Squando has to say!
" Squando shuts his eyes and sees,
Far oif, Saco's hemlock-trees.
In his wigwam, still as stone,
Sits a woman all alone,
" Wampum beads and birchen strands
Dropping from her careless hands.
Listening ever for the fleet
Patter of a dead child's feet!
" When the moon a year ago
Told the flowers the time to blow.
In that lonely wigwam smiled
Menewee, our little child.
'' Ere that moon grew thin and old.
He was lying still and cold ;
Sent before us, weak and small,
When the Master did not call !
" On his little grave I lay ;
Three times went and came the day;
Thrice above me blazed the noon.
Thrice upon me wept the moon.
" In the third night-watch I heard.
Far and low, a spirit-bird ;
Very mournful, very wild.
Sang the totem of my child.
" ^ Menewee, poor Menewee,
Walks a path he cannot see :
Let the white man's wigwam light
With its blaze his steps aright.
" ' All un-called, he dares not show
Empty hands to Manito :
Better gifts he cannot bear
Than the scalps his slayers wear.'
" All the while the totem sang,
Lightning blazed and thunder rang ;
And a black cloud, reaching high,
Pulled the white moon from the sky.
'' I, the medicine-man, whose ear
All that spirits hear can hear, —
I, whose eyes are wide to see
All the things that are to be, —
" Well I knew the dreadful signs
In the whispers of the pines.
In the river roaring loud,
In the mutter of the cloud.
" At the breaking of the day.
From the grave I passed away ;
THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.
293
Flowers bloomed round me, birds
sang glad.
But my heart was hot and mad.
''■ There is rust on Squando's knife,
From the warm, red springs of life ;
On the funeral hemlock-trees
Many a scalp the totem sees.
'' Blood for blood! But evermore
Squando's heart is sad and sore ;
And his poor squaw waits at home
For the feet that never come!
^^ Waldron of Cocheco, hear!
Squando speaks, who laughs at fear ;
Take the captives he has ta'en ;
Let the land have peace again! ^^
As the words died on his tongue,
Wide apart his warriors swung ^
Parted, at the sign he gave.
Right and left, like Egypt's wave.
And, like Israel passing free
Through the prophet-charmed sea,
Captive mother, wife, and child
Through the dusky terror filed.
One alone, a little maid,
Middleway her steps delayed.
Glancing, with quick, troubled sight.
Round about from red to white.
Then his hand the Indian laid
On the little maiden's head,
Lightly from her forehead fair
Smoothing back her yellow hair.
" Gift or favor ask I none ;
What I have is all my own :
Never yet the birds have sung,
^Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'
^' Yet for her who waits at home.
For the dead who cannot come.
Let the little Gold-hair be
In the place of Menewee!
'* Mishanock, my little star!
Come to Saco's pines afar ;
Where the sad one waits at home,
Wequashim, my moonlight, come!"
^^What!" quoth Waldron, 'Meave a
child
Christian-born to heathens wild?
As God lives, from Satan's hand
I will pluck her as a brand! "
^* Hear me, white man!" Squando
cried ;
^'Let the little one decide.
Wequashim, my moonlight, say.
Wilt thou go with, me, or stay .^ "
Slowly, sadly, half afraid.
Half regretfully, the maid
Owned the ties of blood and race, —
Turned from Squando's pleading face.
Not a word the Indian spoke.
But his wampum chain he broke,
And the beaded wonder hung
On that neck so fair and young.
Silence-shod, as phantoms seem
In the marches of a dream.
Single-filed, the grim array
Through the pine-trees wound away.
Through her tears the young child
gazed.
"God preserve her! " Waldron said;
" Satan hath bewitched the maid ! "
Years went and came. At close of
day
Singing came a child from play.
Tossing from her loose-locked head
Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.
Pride was in the mother's look.
But her head she gravely shook.
And with lips that fondly smiled
Feigned to chide her truant child.
294
IIOiME BALLADS.
Unabashed, the maid began :
'• Up and down the brook I ran,
Where, beneath the bank so steep,
Lie the spotted trout asleep.
*' ^ Chip! ' went squirrel on the wall,
After me I heard him call,
And the cat-bird on the tree
Tried his best to mimic me.
^•^ Where the hemlocks grew so dark
That I stopped to look and hark,
On a log, with feather-hat.
By the path, an Indian sat.
'- Then I cried, and ran away ;
But he called, and bade me stay ;
And his voice was good and mild
As my mother's to her child.
^' And he took my wampum chain,
Looked and looked it o'er again ;
Gave me berries, and, beside,
On my neck a plaything tied.*"
Straight the mother stooped to see
What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of Wampum hung,
Lo I a cross of silver swung.
Well she knew its graven sign,
Squando's bird and totem pine ;
And, a mirage of the brain.
Flowed her childhood back again.
Flashed the roof the sunshine through.
Into space the w^alls outgrew ;
On the Indian's wigwam-iiiat.
Blossom-crowned, again she sat.
Cool she felt the west-wind blow,
In her ear the pines sang low,
And, like links from out a chain.
Dropped the years of care and pain.
From the outward toil and din.
From the griefs that gnaw within,
To the freedom of the woods
Called the birds, and winds, and
floods,
Well, O painful minister !
Watch thy flock, but blame not her,
If her ear grew sharp to hear
All their voices whispering near.
Blame her not, as to her soul
All the desert's glamour stole.
That a tear for childhood's loss
Dropped upon the Indian's cross.
When, that night, the Book was read,
And she bowed her widowed head.
And a prayer for each loved name
Rose like incense from a flame,
To the listening ear of Heaven,
Lo! another name was given:
'' Father, give the Indian rest !
Bless him! for his love has blest! "
MY PLAYMATE.
The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low ;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.
The blossoms drifted at our feet.
The orchard birds sang clear ;
The sw^eetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.
For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing
spring,^
The music and the bloom.
She kissed the lips of kith and kin.
She laid her hand in mine :
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?
She left us in the bloom of May :
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons wdth as sweet May
morns.
But she came back no more.
THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.
295
I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years ;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.
She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow ;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
Thei'e haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown, —
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.
The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,
And still the May-day flowers make
sweet
The woods of Follymill.
The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.
I wonder if she thinks of them.
And how the old time seems, —
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.
I see her face, I hear her voice :
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?
What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours, —
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers ?
O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds so sweet with birch and
fern
A sweeter memory blow ;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea, —
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee !
POEMS AND LYRICS.
THE SHADOW AND THE
LIGHT.
" And I sought, whence is Evil : I set be-
fore the eye of my spirit the whole creation ;
whatsoever we see therein, — sea, earth, air,
stars, trees, moral creatures, — yea, whatso-
ever there is we do not see, — angels and
spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence
comes it, since God the Good hath created
all things? Why made He anything at all
of evil, and not rather by His Almighti-
ness cause it not to be? These thoughts I
turned in my miserable heart, overcharged
with most gnawing cares." " And, admon-
ished to return to mvself, I entered even
into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide,
and beheld even beyond my soul and mind
the Light unchangeable. He who knows
the Truth knows what that Light is, and he
that knows it know s Eternity ! O Truth,
who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth!
Eternity, who art Love ! And I beheld
that Thou madest all things good, and to
Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the
angel to the worm, from the first motion to
the last, Thou settest each in its place, and
everything is good in its kind. Woe is
me! — how high art Thou in the highest,
how deep in the deepest ! and Thou never
departest from us and we scarcely return
to Thee." — Augustine s Soliloquies, Book
VIL
The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
296
POEMS AND LYRICS.
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old com-
plaint.
No outward sign to us is given, —
From sea or earth comes no
reply ;
Hushed as the warm Numidian
heaven
He vainly questioned bends our
frozen sky.
No victory comes of all our strife, —
From all we grasp the meaning
slips ;
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life,
With the old question on her awful
lips.
In paths unknown we hear the feet
Of fear before, and guilt behind ;
We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat
Ashes and dust beneath its golden
rind.
From age to age descends unchecked
The sad bequest of sire to son.
The body^s taint, the mind^s de-
fect, —
Through every web of life the dark
threads run.
O, why and whither? — God knows
all;
I only know that he is good.
And that whatever may befall
Or here or there, must be the best that
could.
Between the dreadful cherubim
A Father's face I still discern.
As Moses looked of old on him,
And saw his glory into goodness
turn!
For he is merciful as just ;
And so, by faith correcting sight,
I bow before his will, and trust
Howe'er they seem he doeth all things
rio^ht.
And dare to hope that he will make
The rugged smooth, the doubtful
plain ;
His mercy never quite forsake ;
His healing visit every realm of pain ;
That suffering is not his revenge
Upon his creatures weak and frail,
Sent on a pathway new and strange
With feet that wander and with eyes
that fail ;
That, o'er the crucible of pain,
Watches the tender eye of Love
The slow transmuting of the chain
Whose links are iron below to gold
above 1
Ah me ! we doubt the shining skies,
Seen through our shadows of
offence,
And drown with our poor childish
cries
The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.
And still we love the evil cause.
And of the just effect complain ;
We tread upon life's broken laws,
And murmur at our self-inflicted pain ;
We turn us from the light, and find
Our spectral shapes before us
thrown,
As they who leave the sun behind
Walk in the shadows of themselves
alone.
And scarce by will or strength of
ours
We set our faces to the day ;
Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal
Powers
Alone can turn us from ourselves away.
Ourweaknessis the strength of sin,
But love must needs be stronger
far,
Outreaching all and gathering in
The erring spirit and the wandering
star.
THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.
297
A Voice grows with the growing
years ;
Earth, hushing down her bitter
cry,
Looks upward from her graves, and
hears,
^' The Resurrection and the Life amL"
O Love Divine! — whose constant
beam
Shines on the eyes that will not
see.
And waits to bless us, while we
dream
Thou leavest us because we turn from
thee!
All souls that struggle and aspire,
All hearts of prayer by thee are lit ;
And, dim or clear, thy tongues of
fire
On dusky tribes and twilight centuries
sit.
Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed
thou know'st,
Wide as our need thy favors fall ;
The white wings of the Holy Ghost
Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads
of all.
O Beauty, old yet ever new!
Eternal Voice, and Inward Word,
The Logos of the Greek and Jew,
The old sphere-music which the
Samian heard!
Truth which the sage and prophet
saw.
Long sought without, but found
within,
The Law of Love beyond all law,
The Life o'erflooding mortal death and
sin!
Shine on us with the light which
glowed
Upon the trance-bound shep-
herd ^s way,
Who saw the Darkness overflowed
And drowned by tides of everlasting
Day.
Shine, light of God! — make broad
thy scope
To all who sin and suffer ; more
And better than we dare to hope
With Heaven's compassion make our
longings poor!
THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.
Tritemius of Herbipolis, one day.
While kneeling at the altar's foot to
pray,
Alone with God, as was his pious
choice.
Heard from without a miserable voice,
A sound which seemed of all sad
things to tell.
As of a lost soul crying out of hell.
Thereat the Abbot paused ; the chain
whereby
His thoughts went upward broken by
that cry ;
And, looking from the casement, saw
below
A wretched woman, with gray hair
a-flow.
And withered hands held up to him,
who cried
For alms as one who might not be
denied.
She cried, " For the dear love of Him
who gave
His life for ours, my child from bond-
age save, —
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained
with slaves
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-
smit waves
Lap the white walls of Tunis ! '' —
'' What I can
I give," Tritemius said : " My prayers."
— " O man
Of God ! '^ she cried, for grief had
made her bold,
298
POEMS AND LYRICS.
'' Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers,
but gold.
Words will not serve me, alms alone
suffice ;
Even while I speak perchance my first-
born dies.''
" Woman ! " Tritemius answered,
'^ from our door
None go unfed ; hence are we always
poor :
A single soldo is our only store.
Thou hast our prayers ; — what can
we give thee more ? "
" Give me," she said, ^^ the silver can-
dlesticks
On either side of the great crucifix.
God well may spare them on his
errands sped,
Or he can give you golden ones in-
stead."
Then spake Tritemius, ^^ Even as thy
word.
Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious
Lord,
Who loveth mercy more than sacri-
fice.
Pardon me if a human soul I prize
Above the gifts upon his altar piled !)
Take what thou askest, and redeem
thy child."
But his hand trembled as the holy
alms
He placed within the beggar's eager
palms ;
And as she vanished down the linden
shade.
He bowed his head and for forgiveness
prayed.
So the day passed, and when the twi-
light came
He woke to find the chapel all aflame,
And, dumb with grateful wonder, to
behold
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold!
THE EVE OF ELECTION.
From gold to gray
Our mild sweet day
Of Indian Summer fades too soon ;
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's
moon.
In its pale fire.
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance ;
The painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfigured stand in marble trance !
O'er fallen leaves '
The west-wind grieves,
Yet comes a seed-time round again ;
And morn shall see
The State sown free
With baleful tares or healthful grain.
Along the street
The shadows meet
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The moulds of fate
That shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal.
Around I see
The powers that be ;
I stand by Empire's primal springs ;
And princes meet
In every street,
And hear the tread of uncrowned
kings!
Hark ! through the crowd
The laugh runs loud.
Beneath the sad, rebuking moon.
God save the land
A careless hand
May shake or swerve ere morrow's
noon!
No jest is this ;
One cast amiss
THE OVER-HEART.
299
May blast the hope of Freedom's year.
O, take me where
Are hearts of prayer,
And foreheads bowed in reverent fear!
Not hc^htly fall
Beyond recall
The written scrolls a breath can float ;
The crowning fact,
The kingliest act
Of Freedom is the freeman's vote !
For pearls that gem
A diadem
The diver in the deep sea dies ;
The regal right
We boast to-night
Is ours through costlier sacrifice ;
The blood of Vane,
His prison pain
Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod,
And hers whose faith
Drew strength from death,
And prayed her Russell up to God !
Our hearts grow cold.
We lightly hold
X which brave mer
The stake, the cord.
The axe, the sword,
Grim nurses at its birth of pain.
The shadow rend,
And o'er us bend,
O martyrs, with your crowns and
palms, —
Breathe through these throngs
Your battle songs.
Your scaffold prayers, and dungeon
psalms !
Look from the sky.
Like God's great eye.
Thou solemn moon, with searching
beam ;
Till in the sight
Of thy pure light
Our mean self-seekings meaner seem.
Shame from our hearts
Unworthy arts.
The fraud designed, the purpose dark ;
And smite away
The hands we lay
Profanely on the sacred ark.
To party claims
And private aims.
Reveal that august face of Truth,
Whereto are given
The age of heaven.
The beauty of immortal youth.
So shall our voice
Of sovereign choice
Swell the deep bass of duty done,
And strike the key
Of time to be.
When God and man shall speak as
one!
THE OVER-HEART.
" For of Him, and through Him, and to
Him are all things, to whom be glory for-
ever! " — Paul.
Above, below, in sky and sod.
In leaf and spar, in star and man.
Well might the wise Athenian scan
The geometric signs of God,
The measured order of his plan.
And India's mystics sang aright
Of the One Life pervading all, —
One Being's tidal rise and fall
In soul and form, in sound and sight, —
Eternal outflow and recall.
God is : and man in guilt and fear
The central fact of Nature owns ; —
Kneels, trembHng, by his altar-
stones.
And darkly dreams the ghastly smear
Of blood appeases and atones.
Guilt shapes the Terror : deep within
The human heart the secret lies
POEMS AND LYRICS.
Of all the hideous deities ;
And, painted on a ground of sin,
The fabled gods of torment rise !
And what is Pie? — The ripe grain
nods,
The sweet dews fall, the sweet
flowers blow ;
But darker signs his presence
show :
The earthquake and the storm are
God's,
And good and evil interflow.
O hearts of love! O souls that turn
Like sunflowers to the pure and
best!
To you the truth is manifest :
For they the mind of Christ discern
Who lean like John upon his
breast !
In him of whom the sibyl told,
For whom the prophet's harp was
toned.
Whose need the sage and magian
owned.
The loving heart of God behold,
The hope for which the ages
groaned !
Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery
Wherewith mankind have deified
Their hate, and selfishness, and
pride !
Let the scared dreamer wake to see
The Christ of Nazareth at his side !
What doth that holy Guide re-
qun-e
? _
No rite of pain, nor gift of blood,
But man a kindly brotherhood,
Looking, where duty is desire.
To him, the beautiful and good.
Gone be the faithlessness of fear,
And let the pitying heaven's sweet
rain
Wash out the altar's bloody stain ;
The law of Hatred disappear,
The law of Love alone remain.
How fall the idols false and grim! —
And lo! their hideous wreck above
The emblems of the Lamb and
Dove! '4
Man turns from God, not God from '¥
him;
And guilt, in suffering, whispers
Love!
The world sits at the feet of Christ,
Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled ;
It vet shall touch his garment's
f6ld,
And feel the heavenly Alchemist
Transform its very dust to gold.
The theme befitting angel tongues
Beyond a mortal's scope has
grown.
O heart of mine ! with reverence own
The fulness which to it belongs.
And trust the unknown for the
known.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF JO-
SEPH STURGE.
In the fair land o'erwatched by Is-
chials mountains,
Across the charmed bay
Whose blue waves keep with Capri's
silver fountains
Perpetual holiday,
A king lies dead, his wafer duly
eaten.
His gold-bought masses given ;
And Rome's great altar smokes with
gums to sweeten
Her foulest gift to Heaven.
And while all Naples thrills with
mute thanksgiving.
The court of England's queen
IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH STURGE.
301
For the dead monster so abhorred
while living
In mourning garb is seen.
With a true sorrow God rebukes that
feigning ;
By lone Edgbaston's side
Stands a great city in the sky's sad
raining,
Bare-headed and wet-eyed !
Silent for once the restless hive of
labor,
Save the low fiineral tread,
Or voice of craftsman whispering to
his neighbor
The good deeds of the dead.
For him no minster's chant of the
immortals
Rose from the lips of sin ;
No mitred priest swung back the
heavenly portals
To let the white soul in.
But Age and Sickness framed their
tearful faces
In the low hovePs door,
And prayers went up from all the
dark by-places
And Ghettos of the poor.
The pallid toiler and the negro
chattel,
The vagrant of the street,
The human dice wherewith in games
of batde
The lords of earth compete.
Touched with a grief that needs no
outward draping,
All swelled the long lament.
Of grateful hearts, instead of marble,
shaping
His viewless monument !
For never yet, with ritual pomp and
splendor.
In the long heretofore,
A heart more loyal, warm, and true,
and tender.
Has England's turf closed o'er.
And if there fell from out her grand
old steeples
No crash of brazen wail.
The murmurous woe of kindreds,
tongues, and peoples
Swept in on every gale.
It came fi'om Holstein's birchen-
belted meadows.
And from the tropic calms
Of Indian islands in the sun-smit
shadows
Of Occidental palms ;
From the locked roadsteads of the
Bothnian peasants.
And harbors of the Finn,
Where war's worn victims saw his
gentle presence
Come sailing, Christ-like, in.
To seek the lost, to build the old
waste places.
To link the hostile shores
Of severing seas, and sow with Eng-
land's daisies
The moss of Finland's moors.
Thanks for the good man's beautiful
example.
Who in the vilest saw
Some sacred crypt or altar of a
temple
Still vocal with God's law ;
And heard with tender ear the spirit
sighing
As from its prison cell.
Praying for pity, like the mournful cry-
ing
Of Jonah out of hell.
Not his the golden pen's or lip's per-
suasion.
But a fine sense of right.
302
POEMS AND LYRICS.
And Truth's directness, meeting each
occasion
Straight as a line of light.
His faith and works, like streams
that intermingle,
In the sanTe channel ran :
The crystal clearness of an eye kept
single
Shamed all the frauds of man.
The very gentlest of all human na-
tures
He joined to courage strong,
And love outreaching unto all God's
creatures
With sturdy hate of wrong.
Tender as woman ; manliness and
meekness
In him were so allied
That they who judged him by his
strength or weakness
Saw but a single side.
Men failed, betrayed him, but his zeal
seemed nourished
By failure and by fall ;
Still a large faith in human-kind he
cherished,
And in God's love for all.
And now he rests : his greatness and
his sweetness
No more shall seem at strife ;
And death has moulded into calm
completeness
The statue of his life.
Where the dews glisten and the song-
birds warble,
His dust to dust is laid,
In Nature's keeping, with no pomp of
marble
To shame his modest shade.
The forges glow, the hammers all are
ringing ;
Beneath its smoky vale,
Hard by, the city of his love is swing-
ing
Its clamorous iron flail.
But round his grave are quietude and
beauty.
And the sweet heaven above, —
The fitting symbols of a life of duty
Transfio;ured into love!
TRINITAS. '
At morn I prayed, " I fain would see
How Three are One, and One is
Three ;
Read the dark riddle unto me.''
I wandered forth, the sun and air
I saw bestowed with equal care
On good and evil, foul and fair.
No partial favor dropped the rain ; ^-
Alike the righteous and profane
Rejoiced above their heading grain.
And my heart murmured, " Is it meet
That blindfold Nature thus should
treat
With equal hand the tares and
wheat?"
A presence melted through my
mood, —
A warmth, a light, a sense of good,
Like sunshine through a winter wood.
I saw that presence, mailed complete
In her white innocence, pause to
greet
A fallen sister of the street.
Upon her bosom snowy pure
The lost one clung, as if secure
From inward guilt or outward lure.
'' Beware! " I said ; " in this I see
No gain to her, but loss to thee :
Who touches pitch defiled must
be."
THE OLD BURYING-GROUND.
303
I passed the haunts of shame and sin,
And a voice whispered, ^' Who therein
Shall these lost souls to Heaven's
peace win?
^* Who there shall hope and health
dispense,
And lift the ladder up from thence
Whose rounds are prayers of peni-
tence ? "
I said, *^ No higher life they know ;
These earth-worms love to have it so.
Who stoops to raise them sinks as
low.^'
That night with painful care I read
What Hippo's saint and Calvin said, —
The living seeking to the dead !
In vain I turned, in weary quest,
Old pages, where (God give them
rest !)
The poor creed-mongers dreamed and
guessed.
And still I prayed, " Lord, let me see
How Three are One, and One is
Three ;
Read the dark riddle unto me! "
Then something whispered, " Dost
thou pray
For what thou hast? This very day
The Holy Three have crossed thy way.
^'Did not the ^ifts of sun and air
To good and ill alike declare
The all-compassionate Father's care?
" In the white soul that stooped to
raise
The lost one from her evil ways.
Thou saw'st the Christ, whom angels
praise!
" A bodiless Divinity,
The still small Voice that spake to
thee
W^as the Holy Spirit's mystery!
" O blind of sight, of faith how small!
Father, and Son, and Holy Call ; —
This day thou hast denied them all!
*' Revealed in love and sacrifice.
The Holiest passed before thine eyes,
One and the same, in threefold guise.
'^ The equal Father in rain and sun,
His Christ in the good to evil done.
His Voice in thy soul ; — and the Three
are One! "
I shut my grave Aquinas fast ;
The monkish gloss of ages past,
The schoolman's creed aside I cast.
And my heart answered, " Lord, I see
How Three are One, and One is Three ;
Thy riddle hath been read to me I "
THE OLD BURYING-GROUND.
Our vales are sweet with fern and rose,
Our hills are maple-crowned ;
But not from them our fathers chose
The village burying-ground.
The dreariest spot in all the land
To Death they set apart ;
With scanty grace from Nature's hand,
And none from that of Art.
A winding wall of mossy stone,
Frost-flung and broken, lines
A lonesome acre thinly grown
With grass and wandering vines.
Without the wall a birch-tree shows
Its drooped and tasselled head ;
Within, a stag-horned sumach grows,
Fern-leafed, with spikes of red.
There, sheep that graze the neighbor-
ing plain
Like white ghosts come and go.
The farm -horse drags his fetlock chain,
The cow-bell tinkles slow.
304
rOE^IS AND LYRICS.
Low moans the river from its bed,
The distant pines reply ;
Like mourners shrinking from the
dead,
They stand apart and sigh.
Unshaded smites the summer sun,
Unchecked the winter blast ;
The school-girl learns the place to
shun.
With glances backward cast.
For thus our fathers testified, —
That he might read who ran, —
The emptiness of human pride.
The nothingness of man.
They dared not plant the grave with
. flowers,
Nor dress the funeral sod,
Where, with a love as deep as ours.
They left their dead with God.
The hard and thorny path they kept
From beauty turned aside ;
Nor missed they over those who slept
The grace to life denied.
Yet still the wilding flowers would
blow,
The golden leaves would fall.
The seasons come, the seasons go.
And God be good to all.
Above the graves the blackberry hung
In bloom and green its wreath.
And harebells swung as if they rung
The chimes of peace beneath.
The beauty Nature loves to share.
The gifts she hath for all.
The common light, the common air,
O'ercrept the graveyard's wall.
It knew the glow of eventide.
The sunrise and the noon,
And glorified and sanctified
It slept beneath the moon.
With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod.
Around the seasons ran,
And evermore the love of God
Rebuked the fear of man.
We dwell with fears on either hand,
Within a daily strife.
And spectral problems waiting stand
Before the gates of life.
The doubts we vainly seek to solve,
The truths we know, are one ;
The known and nameless stars re-
volve
Around the Central Sun.
And if we reap as we have sown.
And take the dole we deal,
The law of pain is love alone.
The wounding is to heal.
Unharmed from change to change we
glide,
We fail as in our dreams ;
The far-ofif terror at our side
A smiling angel seems.
Secure on God's all-tender heart
Alike rest great and small ;
Why fear to lose our little part,
When he is pledged for all?
O fearful heart and troubled brain !
Take hope and strength from this, —
That Nature never hints in vain.
Nor prophesies amiss.
Her wild birds sing the same sweet
stave.
Her lights and airs are given
Alike to playground and the grave ;
And over both is Heaven.
THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.
Pipes of the misty moorlands.
Voice of the glens and hills ;
The droning of the torrents.
The treble of the rills !
MY PSALM.
305
Not the braes of broom and heather,
Nor the mountains dark with rain,
Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
Have heard your sweetest strain !
Dear to the Lowland reaper,
And plaided mountaineer, —
To the cottage and the castle
The Scottish pipes are dear ; —
Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch
O'er mountain, loch, and glade ;
But the sweetest of all music
The Pipes at Lucknow played.
Day by day the Indian tiger
Louder yelled, and nearer crept ;
Round and round the jungle-serpent
Near and nearer circles swept.
" Pray for rescue, wives and mothers, —
Pray to-day ! " the soldier said ;
"To-morrow, death's between us
And the wrong and shame we
dread."
O, they listened, looked, and waited.
Till their hope becamiC despair ;
And the sobs of low bewailing
Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden.
With her ear unto the ground :
"Dinna ye hear it? — dinna ye hear
it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound ! "
Hushed the wounded man his groan-
ing;
Hushed the wife her little ones ;
Alone they heard the drum-roll
And the roar of Sepoy guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood
The Highland ear was true ; —
As her mother's cradle-crooning
The mountain pipes she knew.
Like the march of soundless music
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing.
Of the heart than of the ear.
She knew the droning pibroch,
She knew the CampbelPs call :
X
" Hark ! hear ye no' MacGregor's, —
The grandest o' them all! "
O, they listened, dumb and breathless,
And they caught the sound at last ;
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee
Rose and fell the pipers blast !
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
Mingled woman's voice and man's;
" God be praised ! — the March of
Havelock !
The piping of the clans ! "
Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
Stinging all the air to life.
But when the far-off dust-cloud
To plaided legions grew.
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew!
Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
Breathed the air to Britons dearest,
The air of Auld Lang Syne.
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums
Rose that sweet and homelike
strain ;
And the tartan clove the turban,
As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.
Dear to the corn-land reaper
And plaided mountaineer, —
To the cottage and the castle
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
O'er mountain, glen, and glade ;
But the sweetest of all music
The Pipes at Lucknow played!
MY PSALM.
I MOURN no more my vanished years :
Beneath a tender rain.
An April rain of smiles and tears.
My heart is young again.
.3oG
POEMS AND LYRICS.
The west-winds blow, and, singing
low,
I hear the glad streams run ;
The windows of my soul 1 throw
Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear ;
But, grateful, take ihe good I find,
The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare ;
The manna dropping from God^s
hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, — I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.
The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn ;
Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven.
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given ; —
The woods shall wear their robes of
praise.
The south-wind softly sigh.
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong ;
The graven flowers that wreathe the
sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to
heal, —
To build as to destroy ;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told !
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track ; —
That wheresoever my feet have
swerved.
His chastening turned me
back ; —
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood.
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good ; —
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light.
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight ; —
That care and trial seem at last.
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast.
In purple distance fair ; —
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm.
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart.
And so the west-winds play ;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.
A BLUSH as of roses
Where rose never grew !
Great drops on the bunch -grass.
But not of the dew !
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!
"THE kOClC" IN EL GHOR.
307
Back; steed of the prairies !
Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack !
The foul human vultures
Have feasted and fled ;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from the dead.
From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,
The victims were torn, —
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands.
The Marsh of the Swan.
With a vain plea for mercy
No stout knee was crooked ;
In the mouths of the rifles
Right manly they looked.
How paled the May sunshine,
O Marais du Cygne!
On death for the strong life,
On red «:rass for oreen !
Yet warm with their lives.
Ye wait the dead only.
Poor children and wives !
Put out the red forge-fire.
The smith shall not come ;
Unyoke the brown oxen,
The ploughman lies dumb.
Wind slow from the Swanks Marsh,
O dreary death-train.
With pressed lips as bloodless
As lips of the slam!
Kiss down the young eyelids.
Smooth down the gray hairs ;
Let tears quench the curses
That burn through your prayers.
Strong men of the prairies.
Mourn bitter and wild!
Wail, desolate woman !
Weep, fatherless child!
But the grain of God springs up
From ashes beneath,
And the crown of his harvest
Is life out of death.
Not in vain on the dial
The shade moves along,
To point the great contrasts
Of right and of wrong :
Free homes and free altars.
Free prairie and flood, —
The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,
Whose bloom is of blood!
On the lintels of Kansas
That blood shall not dry;
Henceforth the Bad Angel
Shall harmless go by ;
Henceforth to the sunset.
Unchecked on her way,
Shall Liberty follow
The march of the day.
"THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR.
Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps,
Her stones of emptiness remain ;
Around her sculptured mystery sweeps
The lonely waste of Edonvs plain.
From the doomed dwellers in the cleft
The bow of vengeance turns not
back ;
Of all her myriads none are left
Along the Wady Mousa's track.
Clear in the hot Arabian day
Her arches spring, her statues climb ;
Unchanged, the graven wonders pay
No tribute to the spoiler, Time!
Unchanged the awful lithograph
Of power and glory undertrod, —
Of nations scattered like the chaflf
Blown from the threshing-floor of
God.
Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn
From Petra's gates, with deeper awe
3o8
POEMS AND LYRICS.
To mark afar the burial urn
Of Aaron on the cHffs of Hor ;
And where upon its ancient guard
Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing
yet, —
Looks from its turrets desertward.
And keeps the watch that God has
set.
The same as w^hen in thunders loud
It heard the voice of God to man, —
As when it saw in fire and cloud
The angels walk in Israel's van!
Or when from Ezion-Geber's way
It saw the long procession file,
And heard the Hebrew timbrels play
The music of the lordly Nile ;
Or saw the tabernacle pause,
Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's
wells,
While Moses graved the sacred laws,
And Aaron swung his golden bells.
Rock of the desert, prophet-sung !
How grew its shadowing pile at
length,
A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue.
Of God's eternal love and strength.
On lip of bard and scroll of seer.
From age to age went down the
name,
Until the ShilolVs promised year.
And Christ, the Rock of Ages,
The path of life we walk to-day
Is strange as that the Hebrews trod ;
We need the shadowing rock, as
they,—
We need, like them, the guides of
God.
God send his angels, Cloud and Fire,
To lead us o'er the desert sand !
God give our hearts their long desire.
His shadow^ in a weary land!
ON A PRAYER-BOOK,
WITH ITS FRONTISPIECE, ARY SCHEF-
FER'S " CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR,'''
AMERICANIZED BY THE OMISSION
OF THE BLACK MAN.
O Ary Scheffer ! when beneath
thine eye.
Touched with the light that cometh »
from above, m
Grew the sweet picture of the dear «
Lord's love.
No dream hadst thou that Christian
hands would tear
Therefrom the token of his equal
care.
And make thy symbol of his truth
a lie!
The poor, dumb slave whose shackles
fall away
In his compassionate gaze, grubbed
smoothly out.
To mar no more the exercise de-
vout
Of sleek oppression kneeling down to
pray
Where the great *oriel stains the
Sabbath day!
Let whoso can before such praying-
books
Kneel on his velvet cushion ; I, for
one,
Would sooner bow, a Parsee, to the
sun,
Or tend a prayer-wheel in Thibetan
brooks,
Or beat a drum on Yedo's temple-
floor.
No falser idol man has bowed
before.
In Indian groves or islands of the
sea.
Than that which through the quaint-
carved Gothic door
Looks forth, — a Church without hu-
manity !
Patron of pride, and prejudice, and
wrong, —
ON A PRAYER-BOOK.
309
The rich man's charm and fetish of
As the dry husk from which the
the strong,
grain is shed.
The Eternal Fulness meted, clipped,
And holy hymns from which the
and shorn,
life devout
The seamless robe of equal mercy
Of saints and martyrs has well nigh
torn,
gone out,
The dear Christ hidden 'from his
Like candles dying in exhausted
kindred flesh,
air.
And, in his poor ones, crucified
For Sabbath use in measured grists
afresh !
are ground ;
Better the simple Lama scattering
And, ever while the spiritual mill goes
wide,
round.
Where sweeps the storm Alechan's
Between the upper and the nether
steppes along,
stones,
His paper horses for the lost to
Unseen, unheard, the wretched
ride,
bondman groans.
And wearying Buddha with his
And urges his vain plea, prayer-smoth-
prayers to make
ered, anthem-drowned!
The figures living for the traveller's
0 heart of mine, keep patience ! —
sake,
Looking forth,
Than he who hopes with cheap praise
As from the Mount of Vision, I be-
to beguile
hold.
The ear of God, dishonoring man the
Pure, just, and free, the Church of
while ;
Christ on earth, —
•Who dreams the pearl gate's hinges.
The martyr's dream, the golden age
rusty grown.
foretold!
Are moved by flattery's oil of tongue
And found, at last, the mystic Graal I
alone ;
see.
Tliat in the scale Eternal Justice
Brimmed with His blessing, pass
bears
from lip to lip
The generous deed weighs less than
In sacred pledge of human fellow-
selfish prayers.
ship ;
And words intoned with graceflil unc-
And over all the songs of angels
tion move
hear, —
The Eternal Goodness more than lives
Songs of the love that casteth out
of truth and love.
all fear, —
Alas, the Church! — The reverend
Songs of the Gospel of Human-
head of Jay,
ity!
Enhaloed with its saintly silvered
Lo ! in the midst, wdth the same look
hair,
he w^ore,
Adorns no more the places of her
Healing and blessing on Genesaret's
prayer ;
shore.
And brave young Tyng, too early
Folding together, with the all-tender
called away,
might
Troubles the Haman of her courts
Of his great love, the dark hands and
no more
the white.
Like the just Hebrew at the Assyri-
Stands the Consoler, soothing every
an's door ;
pain.
And her sweet ritual, beautiful but
Making all burdens light, and break-
dead
ing every chain.
rOEMS AND LYRICS.
TO J. T. F.
ON A BLANK LEAF OF " POEMS
PRINTED, NOT PUBLISHED.""
Well thought! who would not rather
hear
The songs to Love and Friendship
sung
Than those which move the stranger's
tongue,
And feed his unselected ear?
Our social joys are more than fame ;
Life withers in the public look.
Why mount the pillory of a book,
Or barter comfort for a name?
Who in a house of glass would dwell,
With curious eyes at every pane?
To ring him in and out again.
Who wants the public ciier's bell?
To see the angel in one's way.
Who waits to play the ass's part, —
Bear on his back the wizard Art,
And in his service speak or bray?
And who his manly locks would shave.
And quench the eyes of common sense.
To share the noisy recompense
That mocked the shorn and blinded
slave ?
The heart has needs beyond the head.
And, starving in the plenitude
Of strange gifts, craves its common
food, —
Our human nature's daily bread.
We are but men : no gods are we.
To sit in mid-heaven, cold and bleak,
Each separate, on his painful peak.
Thin-cloaked in self-complacency!
Better his lot whose axe is swung
In Wartburg woods, or that poor girPs
Who by the Ilm her spindle whirls
And sings the songs that Luther sung,
Than his who, old, and cold, and vain,
At Weimar sat, a demigod.
And bowed with Jove's imperial nod
His votaries in and out again!
Ply, Vanity, thy winged feet !
Ambition, hew thy rocky stair!
Who envies him who feeds on air
The icy splendor of his seat?
I see your Alps, above me, cut
The dark, cold sky ; and dim and lone
I see ye sitting, — stone on stone, —
With human senses dulled and shut.
I could not reach you, if I would,
Nor sit among your cloudy shapes ;
And (spare the fable of the grapes
And fox) I would not if I could.
Keep to your lofty pedestals !
The safer plain below I choose :
Who never wins can rarely lose,
Who never climbs as rarely falls.
Let such as love the eagle's scream
Divide with him his home of ice :
For me shall gentler notes suffice, —
The valley-song of bird and stream ;
The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees,
The flail-beat chiming far away,
The cattle-low, at shut of day.
The voice of God in leaf and breeze !
Then lend thy hand, my wiser friend.
And help me to the vales below,
(In truth, I have not far to go,)
Where sweet with flowers the fields
extend.
THE PALM-TREE.
Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,
On the Indian Sea, by the isles of
balm ?
Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?
IJNES.
311
A ship whose keel is of pahn beneath,
Whose ribs of pahn have a pahn-bark
sheath,
And a rudder of pahn it steereth with.
Branches of palm are its spars and
rails,
Fibres of palm are its woven sails.
And the rope is of palm that idly
trails!
What does the good ship bear so
well?
The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,
And the milky sap of its inner cell.
What are its jars, so smooth and fine.
But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and
wine,
And the cabbage that ripens under the
Line?
Who smokes his nargileh, cool and
calm ?
The master, whose cunning and skill
could charm
Cargo and ship from the bounteous
palm.
In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat
soft.
From a beaker of palm his drink is
quaffed.
And a palm-thatch shields from the
sun aloft !
His dress is woven of palmy strands,
And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his
hands.
Traced with the Prophet's wise com-
mands !
The turban folded about his head
Was daintily wrought of the palm-
leaf braid,
And the fan that cools him of palm
was made.
Of threads of palm was the carpet
spun
Whereon he kneels when the day is
done,
And the foreheads of Islam are
bowed as one!
To him the palm is a gift divine.
Wherein all uses of man combine, —
House, and raiment, and food, and
And, in the hour of his great release,
His need of the palm shall only
cease
With the shroud wherein he lieth in
peace.
^' Allah il Allah! '' he sings his psalm.
On the Indian Sea, by the isles of
balm ;
" Thanks to Allah who gives the
palm!"
LINES,
READ AT THE BOSTON CELEBRA-
TION OF THE HUNDREDTH AN-
NIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF
ROBERT BURNS, 25TH 1ST MO.,
1859.
How sweetly come the holy psalms
From saints and martyrs down.
The waving of triumphal palms
Above the thorny crown !
The choral praise, the chanted
prayers
From harps by angels stnmg,
The hunted Cameron's mountain
airs,
The hymns that Luther sung!
Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes.
The sounds of earth are heard.
As through the open minster floats
The song of breeze and bird!
Not less the wonder of the sky
That daisies bloom below ;
The brook sings on, though loud and
high
The cloudy organs blow!
312
POEMS AND LYRICS.
And, if the tender ear be jarred
That, haply, hears by turns
The saintly harp of Olney's bard,
The pastoral pipe of Burns,
No discord mars His perfect plan
Who gave them bDth a tongue ;
For he who sings the love of man
The love of God hath sung!
To-day be every fault forgiven
Of him in whom we joy !
We take, with thanks, the gold of
Heaven
And leave the earth^s alloy.
Be ours his music as of spring,
His sweetness as of flowers,
The songs the bard himself might
sing
In holier ears than ours.
Sweet airs of love and home, the hum
Of household melodies,
Come singing, as the robins come
To sing in door-yard trees.
And, heart to heart, two nations
lean,
No rival wreaths to twine,
But blending in eternal green
The holly and the pine!
THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR.
Out and in the river is winding
The links of its long, red chain
Through belts of dusky pine-land
And gusty leagues of plain.
Only, at times, a smoke-wreath
With the drifting cloud-rack
joins, —
The smoke of the hunting-lodges
Of the wild Assiniboins !
Drearily blows the north-wind
From the land of ice and snow ;
The eyes that look are weary.
And heavy the hands that row.
And with one foot on the water,
And one upon the shore.
The Angel of Shadow gives warning
That day shall be no more.
Is it the clang of wild-geese?
Is it the Indian's yell.
That lends to the voice of the north-
wind
The tones of a far-off bell?
The voyageur smiles as he listens
To the sound that grows apace ;
Well he knows the vesper ringing
Of the bells of St. Boniface.
The bells of the Roman Mission,
That call from, their turrets twain,
To the boatman on the river.
To the hunter on the plain!
Even so in our mortal journey
The bitter north- winds blow,
And thus upon life's Red River
Our hearts, as oarsmen, row.
And when the Angel of Shadow
Rests his feet on w^ave and shore.
And our eyes grow dim with watch-
ing
And our hearts faint at the oar,
Happy is he who heareth
The signal of his release
In the bells of the Holy City,
The chimes of eternal peace!
KENOZA LAKE.
As Adam did in Paradise,
To-day the primal right we claim :
Fair mirror of the w^oods and skies,
We give to thee a name.
Lake of the pickerel! — let no more
The echoes answer back, " Great
Pond;'
But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore
And watching hills beyond,
TO G. B. C.
313
Let Indian ghosts, if such there be
Wing- weary from his fields of air,
Who ply unseen ' their shadowy
The wild-goose on thee float.
lines,
Call back the ancient name to thee,
Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir.
As with the voice of pines.
Thy beauty our deforming strife ;
Thy woods and waters minister
The shores we trod as barefoot boys,
The healing of their life.
The nutted woods we wandered
through,
And sinless Mirth, from care re-
To friendship, love, and social joys
leased.
We consecrate anew.
Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky.
Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast
Here shall the tender song be sung.
The Master's loving eye.
And memory's dirges soft and low.
And wit shall sparkle on the tongue,
And when the summer day grows
And mirth shall overflow,
dim.
And light mists walk thy mimic
Harmless as summer lightning plays
sea.
From a low, hidden cloud by night,
Revive in us the thought of Him
A light to set the hills ablaze,
Who walked on Galilee !
But not a bolt to smite.
In sunny South and prairied West
TO G. B. C.
Are exiled hearts remembering
still,
So spake Esaias : so, in words of
As bees their hive, as birds their
flame.
nest.
Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with
The homes of Haverhill.
blame
The traffickers in men, and put to
They join us in our rites to-day ;
shame,
And, listening, we may hear, ere-
All earth and heaven before.
long,
The sacerdotal robbers of the poor.
From inland lake and ocean ba}^.
The echoes of our song.
All the dread Scripture lives for thee
again.
Kenoza! o'er no sweeter lake
To smite with lightning on the hands
Shall morning break or noon-cloud
profane
sail, —
Lifted to bless the slave-w^hip and the
No fairer face than thine shall take
chain.
The sunset's golden veil.
Once more th' old Hebrew tongue
Bends with the shafts of God a bow
Long be it ere the tide of trade
new-strung!
Shall break with harsh-resounding
din
Take up the mantle which the proph-
Xhe quiet of thy banks of shade.
ets w^ore ;
And hills that fold thee in.
Warn with their warnings, — show the
Christ once more
Still let thy woodlands hide the hare.
Bound, scourged, and crucified in his
The shy loon sound his trumpet-
blameless poor ;
note ;
And shake above our land
3H
POEMS AND LYRICS.
The unquencbcd bolts that blazed in
Hosea\s hand !
Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our
years
The solemn burdens of the Orient
seers,
And smite with truth a guilty nation's
ears.
Mightier was Luther^s word
Than Seckingen^s mailed arm or Hut-
ton's sword!
THE SISTERS.
A PICTURE BY BARRY.
The shade for me, but over thee
The lingering sunshine still ;
As, smiling, to the silent stream
Comes down the singing rill.
So come to me, my little one, —
My years with thee I share,
And mingle with a sister's love
A mother's tender care.
But keep the smile upon thy lip,
The trust upon thy brow ;
Since for the dear one God hath called
We have an angel now.
Our mother from the fields of heaven
Shall still her ear incline ;
Nor need we fear her human love
Is less for love divine.
The songs are sweet they sing beneath
The trees of life so fair,
But sweetest of the songs of heaven
Shall be her children's prayer.
Then, darling, rest upon my breast,
And teach my heart to lean
With thy sweet trust upon the arm
Which folds us both unseen !
LINES,
FOR THE AGRICULTURAL AND HORTI-
CULTURAL EXHIBITION AT AMES-
BURY AND SALISBURY, SEPT. 28,
1858.
This day, two hundred years ago,
The wild grape by the river's side.
And tasteless groundnut trailing low.
The table of the woods supplied.
Unknown the apple's red and gold,
The blushing tint of peach and
pear;
The mirror of the Powow told
No tale of orchards ripe and rare.
Wild as the fruits he scorned to till.
These vales the idle Indian trod;
Nor knew the glad, creative skill, —
The joy of him who toils with God.
O Painter of the fruits and flowers!
We thank thee for thy wise design
Whereby these human hands of ours
In Nature's garden work with thine.
And thanks that from our daily need
The joy of simple faith is born ;
That he who smites the summer weed.
May trust thee for the autumn corn.
Give fools their gold, and knaves their
power ;
Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall ;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower.
Or plants a tree, is more than all.
For he who blesses most is blest ;
And God and man shall own his
worth
Who toils to leave as his bequest
An added beauty to the earth.
And, soon or late, to all that sow.
The time of harvest shall be given ;
The flower shall bloom, the fruit shall
grow.
If not on earth, at last in heavei;!
THE PREACHER.
315
THE PREACHER.
Its windows flashing to the sky,
Beneath a thousand roofs of brown,
Far dowai the vale, my friend and I
Beheld the old and quiet town ;
The ghostly sails that out at sea
Happed their white wings of mystery ;
The beaches glimmering in the sun,
And the low wooded capes that run
Into the sea-mist north and south ;
The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth ;
The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar,
The foam-line of the harbor-bar.
Over the woods and meadow-lands
A crimson-tinted shadow lay
Of clouds through which the set-
ting day
Flung a slant glory far away.
It glittered on the wet sea-sands.
It flamed upon the city's panes.
Smote the whitesailsofships that wore
Outward or in, and glided o'er
The steeples with their veering
vanes !
Awhile my friend with rapid search
Overran the landscape. " Yonder
spire
Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire ;
What is it, pray?'' — ^^ The White-
field Church !
Walled about by its basement stones,
There rest the marvellous prophet's
bones."
Then as our homeward way we
walked,
Of the great preacher's life we talked ;
And through the mystery of our theme
The outward glory seemed to stream,
And Nature's self interpreted
The doubtful record of the dead ;
And every level beam that smote
The sails upon the dark afloat
A symbol of the light became
Which touched the shadows of our
blame
With tongues of Pentecostal flame.
Over the roofs of the pioneers
Gathers the moss of a hundred years ;
On man and his works has passed the
change
Which needs must be in a century's
range.
The land lies open and warm in the
sun.
Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run, —
Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the
plain.
The wilderness gladdened with fruit
and grain !
But the living faith of the settlers
old
A dead profession their children
hold ;
To the lust of oflice and greed of
trade
A stepping-stone is the altar made.
The Church, to place and power the
door,
Rebukes the sin of the world no more,
Nor sees its Lord in the homeless
poor.
Everywhere is the grasping hand,
And eager adding of land to land ;
And earth, which seemed to the fathers
meant
But as a pilgrim's wayside tent, —
A nightly shelter to fold away
When the Lord should call at the
break of day, —
Solid and steadfast seems to be,
And Time has forgotten Eternity!
But fresh and green from the rotting
roots
Of primal forests the young growth
shoots ;
From the death of the old the new
proceeds,
And the life of truth from the rot of
creeds :
On the ladder of God, which upward
leads.
The steps of progress are human
needs.
For his judgments still are a mighty
deep,
3i6
POEMS AND LYRICS.
And the eyes of his providence never
sleep :
When the night is darkest he gives
the morn ;
When the famine is sorest, the wine
and corn!
In the church of the wilderness Ed-
wards wrought.
Shaping his creed at the forge of
thought ;
And with Thor's own hammer welded
and bent
The iron links of his argument,
Which strove to grasp in its mighty
span
The purpose of God and the fate of
man!
Yet faithful still, in his daily round
To the weak, and the poor, and sin-
sick found,
The schoolman's lore and the casuist's
art
Drew warmth and life from his fervent
heart.
Had he not seen in the solitudes
Of his deep and dark Northampton
woods
A vision of love about him fall?
Not the blinding splendor which fell
on Saul,
But the tenderer glory that rests on
them
Who walk in the New Jerusalem,
Where never the sun nor moon are
known.
But the Lord and his love are the light
alone!
And watching the sweet, still counte-
nance
Of the wife of his bosom rapt in
trance.
Had he not treasured each broken
word
Of the mystical wonder seen and
heard ;
And loved the beautiful dreamer
more
That thus to the desert of earth she
bore
Clusters of Eschol
shore ?
from Canaan's
As the barley-winnower, holding with
pain
Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain,
Joyfully welcomes the far-oif breeze
Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys,
So he who had waited long to hear
The sound of the Spirit drawing near,
Like that which the son of Iddo heard
When the feet of angels the myrtles
stirred,
Felt the answer of prayer, at last.
As over his church the afflatus passed,
Breaking its sleep as breezes break
To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake.
At first a tremor of silent fear.
The creep of the flesh at danger near,
A vague foreboding and discontent,
Over the hearts of the people w^ent.
All nature warned in sounds and signs :
The wind in the tops of the forest
pines
In the name of the Highest called to
prayer.
As the muezzin calls from the minaret
stair.
Through ceiled chambers of secret sin
Sudden and strong the light shone in ;
A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs
Startled the man of title-deeds ;
The trembling hand of the worldling
shook
The dust of years from the Holy Book ;
And the psalms of David, forgotten
long.
Took the place of the scoffer's song.
The impulse spread like the outward
course
Of waters moved by a central force :
The tide of spiritual life rolled down
From inland mountains to seaboard
town.
Prepared and ready the altar stands
Waiting the prophet's outstretched
hands
THE PREACHER.
317
And prayer availing, to downward call
The fiery answer in view of all.
Hearts are like wax in the furnace,
who
Shall mould, and shape, and cast them
anew ?
Lo! by the Merrimack Whitefield
stands
In the temple that never was made by
hands, —
Curtains of azure, and crystal wall.
And dome of the sunshine over all ! —
A homeless pilgrim, with dubious
name
Blown about on the winds of fame ;
Now as an angel of blessing classed,
And now as a mad enthusiast.
Called in his youth to sound and
gauge
The moral lapse of his race and age,
And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw
Of human frailty and perfect law ;
Possessed by the one dread thought
that lent
Its goad to his fiery temperament.
Up and down the world he went,
A John the Baptist crying, — Repent !
No perfect whole can our nature
make ;
Here or there the circle will break ;
The orb of life as it takes the light
On one side leaves the other in night.
Never was saint so good and great
As to give no chance at St. Peter's
gate
For the plea of the DeviPs advocate.
So, incomplete by his being's law,
The marvellous preacher had his
flaw :
With step unequal, and lame with
faults.
His shade von the path of History
halts.
Wisely and well said the Eastern
bard ;
Fear is easy, but love is hard, —
Easy to glow with the Santon's rage.
And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage ;
But he is greatest and best who can
Worship Allah by loving man.
Thus he, — to whom, in the painful
stress
Of zeal on fire from its own excess.
Heaven seemed so vast and earth so
small
That man was nothing, since God was
all,—
Forgot, as the best at times have
done.
That the love of the Lord and of man
are one.
Little to him whose feet unshod
The thorny path of the desert trod,
Careless of pain, so it led to God,
Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor
man's wrong.
The weak ones trodden beneath the
strong.
Should the worm be chooser? — the
clay withstand
The shaping will of the potter's hand ?
In the Indian fable Arjoon hears
The scorn of a god rebuke his fears :
^' Spare thy pity! " Krishna saith ;
"Not in thy sword is the power of
death !
All is illusion, — loss but seems ;
Pleasure and pain are only dreams ;
Who deems he slayeth doth not kill ;
Who counts as slain is living still.
Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime ;
Nothing dies but the cheats of time ;
Slain or slayer, small the odds
To each, immortal as Indra's gods! "
So by Savannah's banks of shade,
The stones of his mission the preacher
laid
On the heart of the negro crushed and
rent.
And made of his blood the wall's ce-
ment ;
Bade the slave-ship speed from coast
to coast
3i8
POEMS AND LYRICS.
Fanned by the wings of the Holy
Ghost ;
And begged, for the love of Christ, the
gold
Coined from the hearts in its groaning
hold.
What could it matter, more or less
Of stripes, and hunger, and weari-
ness?
Living or dying, bond or free,
What was time to eternity ?
Alas for the preacher's cherished
schemes!
Mission and church are now but
dreams ;
Nor prayer nor fasting availed the
plan
To honor God through the wrong of
man.
Of all his labors no trace remains
Save the bondman lifting his hands
in chains.
The woof he wove in the righteous
warp
Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe,
Clothes with curses the goodly land,
Changes its greenness and bloom to
sand ;
And a century's lapse reveals once
more
The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's
shore.
Father of Light! how blind is he
Who sprinkles the altar he rears to
Thee
With the blood and tears of humanity !
He erred : Shall we count his gifts as
naught ?
Was the work of God in him un-
wrought ?
The servant may through his deafness
err.
And blind may be God's messenger ;
But the errand is sure they go upon, —
The word is spoken, the deed is done.
Was the Hebrew temple less fair and
good
That Solomon bowed to s^ods of wood ?
For his tempted heart and wandering
feet.
Were the songs of David less pure
and sweet?
So in light and shadow the preacher
went,
God's erring and human instrument ;
And the hearts of the people where he
passed
Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast,
Under the spell of a voice which took
In its compass the flow of Siloa's
brook,
And the mystical chime of the bells
of gold
On the ephod's hem of the priest of
old,—
Now the roll of thunder, and now the
awe
Of the trumpet heard in the Mount
of Law.
A solemn fear on the listening crowd
Fell like the shadow of a cloud.
The sailor reeling from out the ships
Whose masts stood thick in the river-
slips
Felt the jest and the curse die on his
lips.
Listened the fisherman rude and hard,
The calker rough from the builder's
yard,
The man of the market left his load,
The teamster leaned on his bending
goad.
The maiden, and youth beside her,
felt
Their hearts in a closer union melt,
And saw the flowers of their love in
bloom
Down the endless vistas of life to
come.
Old age sat feebly brushing away
From his ears the scanty locks of
gray ;
And careless boyhood, living the free
Unconscious life of bird and tree,
Suddenly wakened to a sense
Of sin and its guilty consequence.
It was as if an ano-el's voice
THE PREACHER.
319
Called the listeners up for their final
choice ;
As if a strong hand rent apart
The veils of sense from soul and heart,
Showing in light ineffable
The joys of heaven and woes of hell !
All about in the misty air
The hills seemed kneeling in silent
prayer ;
Therustleofleaves, the moaning sedge
The water's lap on its gravelled edge,
The w^ailing pines, and, far and faint,
The w^ood-dove's note of sad com-
plaint, —
To the solemn voice of the preacher
lent
An undertone as of low lament ;
And the rote of the sea from its sandy
coast,
On the easterly wind, now heard, now
lost.
Seemed the murmurous sound of the
judgment host.
Yet wise men doubted, and good men
wept.
As that storm of passion above them
swept,
And, comet-like, adding flame to
fiame.
The priests of the new Evangel
came, —
Davenport, flashing upon the crowd,
Charged like summer's electric cloud.
Now holding the listener still as
death
With terrible warnings under breath,
Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed
The vision of Heaven's beatitude!
And Celtic Tennant, his long coat
bound
Like a monk's with leathern girdle
round,
Wild with the toss of unshorn hair.
And wringing of hands, and eyes
aglare.
Groaning under the world's despair!
Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to
lose,
Prophesied to the empty pews
That gourds would wither, and mush-
rooms die.
And noisiest fountains run soonest dry,
Like the spring that gushed in New-
bury Street,
Under the tramp of the earthquake's
feet,
A silver shaft in the air and light.
For a single day, then lost in night,
Leaving only, its place to tell,
Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell.
With zeal wing-clipped and white-
heat cool.
Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule,
No longer harried, and cropped, and
fleeced,
Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest,
But by wiser counsels left at ease
To settle quietly on his lees.
And, self-concentred, to count as done
The work which his fathers scarce
begun.
In silent protest of letting alone.
The Quaker kept the way of his own, —
A non-conductor among the wires.
With coat of asbestos proof to fires.
And quite unable to mend his pace
To catch the falling manna of grace.
He hugged the closer his little store
Of faith, and silently prayed for more.
And vague of creed and barren of rite.
But holding, as in his Master's sight.
Act and thought to the inner light,
The round of his simple duties walked.
And strove to live what the others
talked.
And who shall marvel if evil went
Step by step with the good intent.
And with love and meekness, side by
side,
Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride? —
That passionate longings and fancies
vain
Set the heart on fire and crazed the
brain? —
That over the holy oracles
Folly sported with cap and bells? —
That goodly women and learned men
Marvelling told with tongue and pen
320
POEMS AND LYRICS.
How unweaned children chirped Hke
birds
Texts of Scripture and solemn words,
Like the infont seers of the rocky glens
In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes :
Or baby Lamas who pray and preach
From Tartar cradles in Buddha's
speech ?
In the war which Truth or Freedom
wages
With impious fraud and the wrong of
ages
Hate and malice and self-love mar
The notes of triumph with painful jar,
And the helping angels turn aside
Their sorrowing faces the shame to
hide.
Never on custom's oiled grooves
The world to a higher level moves,
But grates and grinds with friction
hard
On granite boulder and flinty shard.
The heart must bleed before it feels,
The pool be troubled before it heals ;
Ever by losses the right must gain.
Every good have its birth of pain ;
The active Virtues blush to find
The Vices wearing their badge be-
hind.
And Graces and Charities feel the fire
Wherein the sins of the age expire ;
The fiend still rends as of old he rent
The tortured body from which he
went.
But Time tests all. In the over-drift
And flow of the Nile, with its annual
gift,
Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk?
Who thinks of the drowmed-out Coptic
monk?
The tide that loosens the temple's
stones,
And scatters the sacred ibis-bones,
Drives away from the valley-land
That Arab robber, the wandering
sand.
Moistens the fields that know no rain.
Fringes the desert with belts of grain,
And bread to the sower brings again.
So the flood of emotion deep and
strong
Troubled the land as it swept along,
But left a result of holier lives,
Tenderer mothers and worthier wives.
The husband and father whose chil- •!
dren fled
And sad wife wept when his drunken
tread
Frightened peace from his roof-tree's
shade.
And a rock of offence his hearthstone
made.
In a strength that was not his own,
began
To rise from the brute's to the plane
of man.
Old friends embraced, long held apart
By evil counsel and pride of heart ;
And penitence saw through misty
tears.
In the bow of hope on its cloud of
fears.
The promise of Heaven's eternal
years, —
The peace of God for the world's an-
noy, —
Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy!
Under the church of Federal Street,
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet.
Walled about by its basement stones,
Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.
No saintly honors to them are shown.
No sign nor miracle have they known ;
But he who passes the ancient church
Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch.
And ponders the wonderful life of
him
Who lies at rest in that charnel dim.
Long shall the traveller strain his eye
From the railroad car, as it plunges
by,
And the vanishing town behind him
search
For the slender spire of the Whitefield
Church ;
And feel for one moment the ghosts
of trade,
THE QUAKER ALUMNI.
321
And fashion, and folly, and pleasure
laid,
By the thought of that life of pure in-
tent,
That voice of warning yet eloquent.
Of one on the errands of angels
sent.
And if where he labored the flood of
sin
Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets
in.
And over a life of time and sense
The church-spires lift their vain de-
fence.
As if to scatter the bolts of God
With the points of Calvin's thunder-
rod, —
Still, as the gem of its civic crown,
Precious beyond the world's renown,
His memory hallows the ancient
town !
THE QUAKER ALUMNL
From the well-springs of Hudson, the
sea-cliffs of Maine,
Grave men, sober matrons, you gather
again ;
And, with hearts warmer grown as
your heads grow more cool.
Play over the old game of going to
school.
All your strifes and vexations, your
whims and complaints,
(You were not saints yourselves, if the
children of saints ! )
All your petty self-seekings and rival-
ries done,
Round the dear Alma Mater your
hearts beat as one!
How widely soe'er you have strayed
from tile fold,
Though your "thee" has grown
*'you," and your drab blue and
gold,
To the old friendly speech and the
garb's sober form,
Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan,
you warm.
But, the first greetings over, you
glance round the hall ;
Your hearts call the roll, but they an-
swer not all :
Through the turf green above them
the dead cannot hear ;
Name by name, in the silence, falls
sad as a tear!
In love, let us trust, they were sum-
moned so soon
From the morning of life, while we
toil through its noon ;
They were frail like ourselves, they
had needs like our own.
And they rest as we rest in God's
mercy alone.
Unchanged by our changes of spirit
and frame.
Past, now, and henceforward the Lord
is the same ;
Though we sink in the darkness, his
arms break our fall.
And in death as in life, he is Father
of all!
We are older : our footsteps, so light
in the play
Of the far-away school-time, move
slower to-day ; —
Here a beard touched with frost, there
a bald, shining crown.
And beneath the cap's border gray
mingles with brown.
But faith should be cheerful, and trust
should be glad.
And our follies and sins, not our years,
make us sad.
Should the heart closer shut as the
bonnet grows prim.
And the face grow in length as the
hat grows in brim ?
Life is brief, duty grave ; but, with
rainfolded wings.
322
POEMS AND LYRICS.
Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful
heart sings ;
And we, of all others, have reason to
pay
The tribute of thanks, and rejoice on
our way ;
For the counsels that turned from the
follies of youth ;
For the beauty of patience, the white-
ness of truth ;
For the wounds of rebuke, when love
tempered its edge ;
For the household's restraint, and tlie
discipline's hedge ;
For the lessons of kindness vouch-
safed to the least
Of the creatures of God, whether hu-
man or beast,
Bringing hope to the poor, lending
strength to the frail,
In the lanes of the city, the slave-hut,
and jail ;
For a womanhood higher and holier.
by all
Her knowledge of good, than was Eve
ere her fall, —
Whose task-work of duty moves
lightly as play,
Serene as the moonlight and warm as
the day ;
And, yet more, for the faith which
embraces the whole,
Of the creeds of the ages the life and
the soul.
Wherein letter and spirit the same
channel run,
And man has not severed what God
has made one!
For a sense of the Goodness revealed
everywhere.
As sunshine impartial, and free as the
air ;
For a trust in humanity, Heathen or
Jew,
And a hope for all darkness The Light
shineth through.
Who scofifs at our birthright? — the |j
words of the seers, j!
And the songs of the bards in the twi- i
light of years, }
All the foregleams of wisdom in san- ,
ton and sage, \
In prophet and priest, are our true
heritage. ■
The Word which the reason of Plato
discerned ;
The truth, as whose symbol the
Mithra-fire burned ;
The soul of the world which the Stoic
but guessed.
In the Light Universal the Quaker
confessed !
No honors of war to our worthies be-
long;
Their plain stem of life never flowered
into song ;
But the fountains they opened still
gush by the way.
And the world for their healing is bet-
ter to-day.
He who lies where the minster's
groined arches curve down
To the tomb-crowded transept of
England's renown.
The glorious essayist, by genius en-
throned.
Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all
owned, —
Who through the world's pantheon
walked in his pride.
Setting new statues up, thrusting old
ones aside,
And in fiction the pencils of history
dipped.
To gild o'er or blacken each saint in
his crypt, —
How vainly he labored to sully with
blame
THE QUAKER ALUMNI.
323
The white bust of Penn, in the niche
of his fame !
Self-will is self-wounding, perversity
blind :
On himself fell the stain for the
Quaker designed!
For the sake of his true-hearted father
before him ;
For the sake of the dear Quaker
mother that bore him ;
For the sake of his gifts, and the
works that outlive him,
And his brave words for freedom, we
freely forgive him !
There are those who take note that
our numbers are small, —
New Gibbons who WTite our decline
and our fall ;
But the Lord of the seed-field takes
care of his own.
And the world shall yet reap what our
sowers have sown.
The last of the sect to his fathers may
Leaving only his coat for some Bar-
num to show ;
But the truth will outlive him, and
broaden wdth years,
Till the false dies away, and the
wrong disappears.
Nothing fails of its end. Out of sight
sinks the stone,
In the deep sea of time, but the circles
sweep on,
Till the low-rippled murmurs along
the shores run.
And the dark and dead waters leap
glad in the sun. •
Meanwhile shall we learn, in our ease,
to forget
To the martyrs of Truth and of Free-
dom our debt? —
Hide their words out of sight, like the
garb that they w^ore,
And for Barclay's Apology offer one
more ?
Shall we fawn round the priestcraft
that glutted the shears.
And festooned the stocks with our
grandfathers' ears ? —
Talk of Woolman's unsoundness? —
count Penn heterodox?
And take Cotton Mather in place of
George Fox? —
Make our preachers war-chaplains? —
quote Scripture to take
The hunted slave back, for Onesimus'
sake ? —
Go to burning church-candles, and
chanting in choir,
And on the old meeting-house stick
up a spire ?
No ! the old paths we '11 keep until
better are shown,
Credit good where we find it, abroad
or our own ;
And while ^' Lo here " and " Lo there"
the multitude call.
Be true to ourselves, and do justice to
all.
The good round about us we need not
refuse.
Nor talk of our Zion as if we were
Jews ;
But why shirk the badge which our
fathers have worn.
Or beg the world's pardon for having
been born?
We need not pray over the Pharisee's
prayer,
Nor claim that our wisdom is Benja-
min's share.
Truth to us and to others is equal and
one :
Shall we bottle the free air, or hoard
up the sun ?
Well know we our birthright may
serve but to show
324
POEMS AND LYRICS.
How the meanest of weeds in the
richest soil grow ;
But we need not disparage the good
which we hold ;
Though the vessels be earthen, the
treasure is gold !
Enough and too much of the sect and
the name.
What matters our label, so truth be
our aim ?
The creed may be wrong, but the life
may be true,
And hearts beat the same under drab
coats or blue.
So the man be a man, let him worship,
at will,
In Jerusalem's courts, or on Gerizim's
hill.
When she makes up her jewels, what
cares the good town
For the Baptist of Wayland, the
Quaker of Brown ?
And this green, favored island, so
fresh and sea-blown.
When she counts up the worthies her
annals have known,
Never waits for the pitiful gangers of
sect
To measure her love, and mete out
her respect.
Three shades at this moment seem
walking her strand.
Each with head halo-crowned, and
with palms in his hand, —
Wise Berkeley, grave Hopkins, and,
smiling serene
On prelate and puritan, Channing is
seen.
One holy name bearing, no longer
they need
Credentials of party, and pass-words
of creed :
The new song they sing hath a three-
fold accord,
And they own one baptism, one faitK
and one Lord !
But the golden sands run out : occa-
sions like these
Glide swift into shadow, like sails on
the seas :
While we sport with the mosses and
pebbles ashore.
They lessen and fade, and we see
them no more.
Forgive me, dear friends, if my va-
grant thoughts seem
Like a school- boy's who idles and
plays with his theme.
Forgive the light measure whose
changes display
The sunshine and rain of our brief
April day.
There are moments in life when the
lip and the eye
Try the question of whether to smile
or to cry ;
And scenes and reunions that prompt
like our own
The tender in feeling, the playful in
tone.
I, who never sat down with the boys
and the girls
At the feet of your Slocums, and
Cartlands. and Earles, —
By courtesy only permitted to lay
On your festival's altar my poor gift,
to-day, —
I would joy in your joy : let me have
a friend\s part
In the warmth of your welcome of
hand and of heart, —
On your play-ground of boyhood un-
bend flie brown's care.
And shift the old burdens our shoul-
ders must bear.
Long live the good School! giving
out year by year
Recruits to true manhood and woman-
hood dear :
BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE.
325
Brave boys, modest maidens, in beauty
sent forth,
The Hving epistles and proof of its
worth !
In and out let the young life as steadily
flow
As in broad Narragansett the tides
come and go ;
And its sons and its daughters in
prairie and town
Remember its honor, and guard its
renown.
Not vainly the gift of its founder was
made ;
Not prayerless the stones of its cor-
ner were laid :
The blessing of Him whom in secret
they sought
Has owned the good work which the
fathers have wroug^ht.
To Him be the glory forever! — We
bear
To the Lord of the Harvest our wheat
with the tare.
What we lack in our work may He
find in our will,
And w'innow in mercy our good from
the ill!
BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE.
John Brown of Ossaavatomie spake on his dying day :
" I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay.
But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free,
With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me!"
John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die ;
And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh.
Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew mild.
As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's child!
The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart ;
And they w-ho blam.ed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart.
That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent.
And round the grisly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent!
Perish with him the folly that seeks through evil good !
Long live the generous purpose unstained with human blood!
Not the raid of midnight terror, but the thought w^iich underlies;
Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the Christian's sacrifice.
Nevermore may yon Blue Ridges the Northern rifle hear,
Nor see the light of blazing homes flash on the negro's spear.
But let the free-winged angel Truth their guarded passes scale.
To teach that right is more than might, and justice more than mail!
So vainly shall Virginia set her battle in array ;
In vain her trampling squadrons knead the winter snow with clay.
She may strike the pouncing eagle, but she dares not harm the dove ;
And every gate she bars to Hate shall open wide to Love !
326
POEMS AND LYRICS.
FROM PERUGIA.
"The thing which has the most dissev-
ered the people from the Pope, — the
unforgivable thmg, — the breaking point
between him and them, — has been the
encouragement and promotion he gave to
the officer under whom were executed the
slaughters of Perugia. That made the
breaking point in many honest hearts that
had clung to him before." — Harriet Beecher
Stowes " Letters from Italy y
The tall, sallow guardsmen their
horsetails have spread,
Flaming out in their violet, yellow,
and red ;
And behind go the lackeys in crimson
and buff,
I the cha
velvet and ruff;
Next, in red-legged pomp, come the
cardinals forth,
Each a lord of the church and a
prince of the earth.
What 's this squeak of the fife, and
this batter of drum ?
Lo! the Swiss of the Church from
Perugia come, —
The militant angels, whose sabres
drive home
To the hearts of the malcontents,
cursed and abhorred,
The good Father's missives, and
^' Thus saith the Lord ! ''
And lend to his logic the point of the
sword !
O maids of Etruria, gazing forlorn
O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled
and torn!
O fathers, who pluck at your gray
beards for shame !
O mothers, struck dumb by a woe
without name!
Well ye know how the Holy Church
hireling behaves.
And his tender compassion of prisons
and o^raves !
There they stand, the hired stabbers,
the blood-stains yet fresh.
That splashed like red wine from the
vintage of flesh, —
Grim instruments, careless as pincers
and rack
How the joints tear apart, and the
strained sinews crack ;
But the hate that glares on them is
sharp as their swords,
And the sneer and the scowl print
the air with fierce words!
Off with hats, down with knees, shout
your vivas like mad!
Here 's the Pope in his holiday right-
eousness clad.
From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-
worn to the quick,
Of sainthood in purple the pattern
and pick.
Who the role of the priest and the
soldier unites,
And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua
fights !
Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for
whom
We sang our hosannas and lighted
all Rome ;
With whose advent we dreamed the
new era began
When the priest should be human,
the monk be a man?
Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and
the fox with the fowl.
When freedom we trust to the crozier
and cowl!
Stand aside, men of Rome ! Here 's
a hangman-faced Swiss —
(A blessing for him surely can't go
amiss) —
Would kneel down the sanctified slip-
per to kiss.
Short shrift will suffice him, — he ^s
blessed beyond doubt ;
But there 's blood on his hands which
would scarcely wash out,
FOR AN AUTUxMN FESTIVAL.
327
Though. Peter himself held the bap-
tismal spout !
Make way for the next! Here's an-
other sweet son !
What's this mastiff-jawed rascal in
epaulets done?
He did, whispers rumor, (its truth
God forbid !)
At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem
did.
And the mothers? — Don't name
them! — these humors of war
They who keep him in service must
pardon him for.
Hist ! here \s the arch-knave in a car-
dinal's hat,
With the heart of a wolf, and the
stealth of a cat
(As if Judas and Herod together
were rolled).
Who keeps, all as one> the Pope's
conscience and gold,
Mounts guard on the altar, and pil-
fers from thence.
And flatters St. Peter while stealing
his pence!
Who doubts Antonelli? Have mira-
cles ceased
When robbers say mass, and Barab-
bas is priest?
When the Church eats and drinks, at
its mystical board.
The true flesh and blood carved and
shed by its sword.
When its martyr, unsinged, claps the
crown on his head.
And roasts, as his proxy, his neigh-
bor instead!
There! the bells jow and jangle the
the same blessed way
That they did when they rang for
Bartholomew's day.
Hark! the tallow-faced monsters,
nor women nor boys.
Vex the air with a shrill, sexless hor-
ror of noise.
Te Dewn laiidainusl — All round
without stint
The incense-pot swings with a taint
of blood in 't!
And now for the blessing! Of little
account,
You know, is the old one they heard
on the Mount.
Its giver was landless, his raiment
was poor.
No jewelled tiara his fishermen wore ;
No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no
home,
No Swiss Guards ! — We order things
better at Rome.
So bless us the strong hand, and
curse us the weak ;
Let Austria's vulture have food for
her beak ;
Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play
Bomba again.
With his death-cap of silence, and
halter, and chain ;
Put reason, and justice, and truth
under ban ;
For the sin unforgiven is freedom for
man !
FOR AN AUTUMN FESTIVAL.
The Persian's flowery gifts, the
shrine
Of fruitful Ceres, charm no more ;
The woven wreaths of oak and pine
Are dust along the Isthmian shore.
But beauty hath its homage still,
And nature holds us still in debt ;
And woman's grace and household
skill.
And manhood's toil, are honored
yet.
And we, to-day, amidst our flowers
And fruits, have come to own again
The blessings of the summer hours,
The early and the latter rain ;
-,28
POEMS AND LYRICS.
To see our Father's hand once more
Reverse for us the plenteous horn
Of autumn, filled and running o'er
With fruit, and flower, and golden
corn!
Once more the liberal year laughs
out
O'er richer stores than gems or
gold ;
Once more with harvest-song and
shout
Is Nature's bloodless triumph told.
Our common mother rests and sings,
Like Ruth, among her garnered
sheaves ;
Her lap is full of goodly things.
Her brow is bright with autumn
leaves.
O favors every year made new !
O gifts with rain and sunshine
sent!
The bounty overruns our due.
The fulness shames our discontent.
We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom
on;
We murmur, but the corn-ears fill ;
We choose the shadow, but the
sun
That casts it shines behind us
still.
God gives us with our rugged soil
The power to make it Eden-fair,
And richer fruits to crown our toil
Than summer-wedded islands bear.
Who murmurs at his lot to-day?
Who scorns his native fruit and
bloom?
Or sighs for dainties far away.
Beside the bounteous board of
home ?
Thank Heaven, instead, that Free-
dom's arm
Can change a rocky soil to gold, —
That brave and generous lives can
warm
A clime with northern ices cold.
And let these altars, wreathed with
flowers
And piled with fruits, awake again
Thanksgivings for the golden hours,
The early and the latter rain!
THE EXILE'S DEPARTURE.
329
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
THE EXILE'S DEPARTURE. 1
Fond scenes, which delighted my
youthful existence,
With feelings of sorrow I bid ye
adieu —
A lasting adieu! for now, dim m the
distance,
The shores of Hibernia recede from
my view.
Farewell to the cliffs, tempest-beaten
and gray,
Which guard the lov'd shores of
my own native land ;
Farewell to the village and sail-
shadow'd bay.
The forest-crownM hill and the
water-wash*d strand.
I've fought for my country — I Ve
braved all the dangers
That throng round the path of the
warrior in strife ;
I now must depart to a nation of
strangers,
And pass in seclusion the remnant
of life ;
Far, far, from the friends to my bosom
most dear,
With none to support me m peril
and pain.
And none but the stranger to drop
the sad tear.
On the grave where the heart-broken
Exile is lain.
Friends of my youth! I must leave
you forever.
And hasten to dwell in a region
unknown : —
1 Whittier's first printed poem, published
in the Newburyport Free Press, J«une 8, 1826.
Yet time cannot change, nor the
broad ocean sever,
Hearts firmly united and tried as
our own.
Ah, no ! though I wander, all sad and
forlorn,
In a far distant land, yet shall
memory trace.
When far o'er the ocean's white surges
I 'm borne.
The scene of past pleasures, — my
own native place.
Farewell, shores of Erin, green land
of my fathers —
Once more, and forever, a mournful
adieu !
For round thy dim headlands the
ocean-mist gathers.
And shrouds the fair isle I no
longer can view.
I go — but wherever my footsteps I
bend.
For freedom and peace to my own
native isle.
And contentment and joy to each
warm-hearted friend.
Shall be the heart's prayer of the
lonely Exile !
Haverhill, Jjme i, 1826.
THE DEITY.2
I Kings xix. ii.
The prophet stood
On the dark mount, and saw the
tempest cloud
Pour the fierce whirlwind from its
dark reservoir
^Whittier's second printed poem, pub-
lished in the Newburyport Free Press,
June 22, 1826.
330
EARLY AND UNCOLLECIED POEMS.
tain oak,
Torn from the earth, heav'd high its
roots where once
Its branches wavM. The fir-tree^s
shapely form,
Smote by the tempest, lashM the
mountain's side.
— Yet, cahn in conscious purity, the
seer
Beheld the scene of desolation — for
Th' Eternal Spirit movM not in the
storm !
The tempest ceasM! — the cavern'd
earthquake burst
Forth from its prison, and the moun-
tain rock'd
E'en to its base : the topmost crags
were thrown,
h fearful eras
dering sides.
— Unaw'd, the prophet saw and
heard — he felt
Not in the earthquake mov'd the God
of Heaven !
The murmurs died away! — and from
the height
(Rent by the storm, and shattered by
the shock).
Rose far and clear a pyramid of
flame,
Mighty and vast! — the startled moun-
tain deer
Shrunk from its glare and cower'd
within the shade.
The wild fowl shrieked! — Yet, even
then, the seer
Untrembling stood, and marked the
fearful glow —
For Israel's God came not within the
flame!
The fiery beacon sunk! — a still S7nall
voice
Now caught the prophet's ear. Its
awful tones,
Unlike to human sounds, at once con-
veyed
Deep awe and reverence to his pious
heart.
Then bow'd the holy man! his face
he veiPd
Within his mantle, and in meekness
owned
The presence of his God — discerned
not in
The storm, the earthquake, or the
mighty flame,
But in the still small voice I
Haverhill, wth of 6th mo7ith^ 1826.
TO THE "RUSTIC BARD."
[The following poem, which was written
by Whittier in January, 1828, is not to be
found in any of his published works. The
"Rustic Bard" was Robert Dinsmoor of
Windham, N.H., of whom a sketch may be
found in Whittier's prose works (" Old Por-
traits and Modern Sketches "). The poem
is in imitation of the Scottish dialect, in
which the " Rustic Bard " wrote.]
Health to the hale auld "Rustic
Bard'M
Gin ye a poet wad regard
Who deems it honor to be ca'd
Yere rhymin' brither,
'T would gie his muse a rich reward — ■
He asks nae ither.
My muse, an inexperienced hizzie,
Wi' pride an' self-importance dizzy,
O' skill to rhyme it free an' easy
Is na possessor ;
But yours has been a lang time busy —
An auld transgressor.
Yes, lang an' weel yeVe held your
way.
An', spite o' a' that critics say,
The memory of your rustic lay
Shall still be dear,
An' wi' yere name to latest day
Be cherish'd here.
An' though the cauld an' heartless
sneer,
THE ALBUM.
331
An' critics urge their wordy weir,
An' graceless scoundrels taunt an'
jeer,
E'en let them do it ;
They canna mak' the muse less dear
To ony poet.
But why should poets '^fash their
thumb " ?
E'en let the storms o' fortune come ;
Maun they alane be left in gloom,
To grope an' stumble,
An' wear the garb fate's partial loom
Has wove maist humble?
No ! up wi' pride — wha cares a
feather
What fools may chance to say, or
whether
They praise or spurn our rhymin'
blether, —
Laud or abuse us, —
While conscience keeps within fair
weather.
An' wise men roose us ?
Then let us smile when fools assail
us.
To answer them will not avail us ;
Contempt alane should meet the rail-
ers, —
It deals a blow,
When weapons like their ain wad fail
us,
To cower the foe.
But whyles they need a castigation,
Shall either name or rank or station
Protect them frae the flagellation
Sae muckle needed?
Shall vice an' crimes that "taint the
nation "
Pass on unheeded?
No! let the muse her trumpet take.
Till auld ofTenders learn to sliake
An' tremble wlien they hear her wake
Her tones o' thunder;
Till pride an' bloated ignorance quake.
An' ofawkies wonder.
For ye, auld bard, though long years
ye 've been
An actor in life's weary scene,
WV saul erect an' fearless mien
Ye 've held your way ;
An' O! may Heaven preserve serene
Your closin' day.
Farewell! the poet's hopes an' fears
May vanish frae this vale o' tears,
An' curtain'd wi' forgotten years
His muse may lie ;
But virtue's form unscaith'd appears —
It canna die!
THE ALBUM.
The dark-eyed daughters of the Sun,
At morn and evening hours,
O'erhung their graceful shrines alone
With wreaths of dewy flowers.
Not vainly did those fair ones cull
Their gifts by stream and wood ;
The Good is always beautiful.
The Beautiful is good!
We live not in their simple day,
Our Northern blood is cold.
And few the offerings which we lay
On other shrines than Gold.
With Scripture texts to chill and ban
The heart's fresh morning hours.
The heavy-footed Puritan
Goes trampling down the flowers ;
Nor thinks of Him who sat of old
Where Syrian lilies grew.
And from their mingling shade and
gold
A holy lesson drew.
Yet lady, shall this book of thine.
Where Love his gifts has brought.
Become to thee a Persian shrine,
O'erhung with flowers of thought.
332
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
MOUNT AGIOCHOOK.
Gray searcher of the upper air!
There ^s sunshine on thy ancient
walls —
A crown upon thy forehead bare —
A flashing on thy water-falls —
A rainbow glory in the cloud,
Upon thine awful summit bowed,
Dim relic of the recent storm!
And music, from the leafy shroud
Which wraps in green thy giant
form,
Mellowed and softened from above.
Steals down upon the listening ear,
Sweet as the maiden^s dream of love,
With soft tones melting on her
ear.
The time has been, gray mountain,
when
Thy shadows veiled the red man^s
home ;
And over crag and serpent den.
And wild gorge, where the steps of
men
In chase or battle might not come,
The mountain eagle bore on high
The emblem of the free of soul ;
And midway in the fearful sky
Sent back the Indian's battle-cry,
Or answered to the thunder^s roll.
The wigwam fires have all burned
out —
The moccasin hath left no track —
Nor wolf nor wild-deer roam about
The Saco or the Merrimack.
And thou that liftest up on high
Thine awful barriers to the sky.
Art not the haunted mount of old.
When on each crag of blasted stone
Some mountain-spirit found a throne,
And shrieked from out the thick
cloud-fold.
And answered to the Thunderer's cry
When rolled the cloud of tempest by,
And jutting rock and riven branch
Went down before the avalanche.
The Father of our people then
Upon thy awful summit trod.
And the red dwellers of the glen
Bowed down before the Indian's
God.
There, when His shadow veiled the
sky,
The Thunderer's voice was long
and loud.
And the red flashes of His eye
Were pictured on the overhanging
cloud.
The Spirit moveth there no more, ■
The dwellers of the hill have gone,
The sacred groves are trampled o'er,
And footprints mar the altar-stone.
The white man climbs thy tallest
rock
And hangs him from the mossy
steep,
Where, trembling to the cloud-fire's
shock,
Thy ancient prison-walls unlock.
And captive waters leap to light,
And dancing down from height to
height,
Pass onward to the far-off deep.
Oh, sacred to the Indian seer,
Gray altar of the days of old I
Still are thy rugged features dear.
As when unto my infant ear
The legends of the past were told.
Tales of the downw^ard sweeping
flood,
When bowed like reeds thy ancient
wood, —
Of armed hand and spectral form.
Of giants in their misty shroud.
And voices calling long and loud
In the drear pauses of the storm !
Farewxll! The red man's face is
turned
Toward another hunting-ground ;
For where the council-fire has burned,
And o'er the sleeping warrior's
mound
Another fire is kindled now :
Its lis:ht is on the white man's brow!
METACOM.
333
The ■ hunter race have passed
away —
Ay, vanished like the morning mist,
Or dew-drops by the sunshine
kissed, —
And wherefore should the red man
stay?
1829.
METACOM.
Red as the banner which enshrouds
The warrior-dead when strife is
done,
A broken mass of crimson clouds
Hung over the departed sun.
The shadow of the western hill
Crept swiftly down, and darkly still,
As if a sullen wave of night
Were rushing on the pale twilight,
The forest-openings grew more dim,
As glimpses of the arching blue
And waking stars came softly
through
The rifts of many a giant limb.
Above the wet and tangled swamp
White vapors gathered thick and
damp,
And through their cloudy curtaining
Flapped many a brown and dusky
wing —
Pinions that fan the moonless dun.
But fold them at the rising sun!
Beneath the closing veil of night,
And leafy bough and curling fog.
With his few warriors ranged in
sight —
Scarred relics of his latest fight —
Rested the fiery Wampanoag.
He leaned upon his loaded gun,
Warm with its recent work of death.
And, save the struggling of his breath
That, slow and hard, and long-sup-
pressed,
Shook the damp folds around his
breast.
An eye, that was unused to scan
The sterner moods of that dark man,
Had deemed his tall and silent form
With hidden passion fierce and warm,
With that fixed eye, as still and dark
As clouds which veil their lightning-
spark —
That of some forest-champion
Whom sudden death had passed
upon —
A giant frozen into stone.
Son of the throned Sachem, — thou.
The sternest of the forest kings, —
Shall the scorned pale-one trample
now,
Unambushed, on thy mountain's
brow —
Yea, drive his vile and hated plough
Among thy nation's holy things.
Crushing the warrior-skeleton
In scorn beneath his armed heel.
And not a hand be left to deal
A kindred vengeance fiercely back.
And cross in blood the Spoiler's
track ?
He started, — for a sudden shot
Came booming through the forest-
trees —
The thunder of the fierce Yengeese :
It passed away, and injured not ;
But, to the Sachem's brow it brought
The token of his lion thought.
He stood erect — his dark eye burned.
As if to meteor-brightness turned ;
And o'er his forehead passed the frown
Of an archangel stricken down.
Ruined and lost, yet chainless still —
Weakened of power but strong of will !
It passed — a sudden tremor came
Like ague o'er his giant frame, —
It was not terror — he had stood
For hours, with death in grim at-
tendance.
When moccasins grew stiff with blood.
And through the clearing's midnight
flame.
Dark, as a storm, the Pequod came,
His red right arm their strong de-
pendence—
When thrilling throuo:h the forest
gloom
The onset cry of " Metacom ! "
Rang on the red and smoky air ! —
334
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
No — it was agony which passed
Upon his soul — the strong man's
last
And fearful struggle with despair.
He turned him to his trustiest one —
The old and war-tried Annawon —
'* Brother'' — the favored warrior stood
In hushed and listening attitude —
" This night the V^ision-Spirit hath
Unrolled the scroll of fate before me ;
And ere the sunrise cometh. Death
Will wave his dusky pinion o'er me!
Nay, start not — v/ell I know thy
faith:
Thy weapon now may keep its sheath ;
But when the bodeful morning breaks,
And the green forest widely wakes
Unto the roar of Yengeese thunder,
Then, trusted brother, be it thine
To burst upon the foeman's line
And rend his serried strength asunder.
Perchance thyself and yet a few
Of faithful ones may struggle through,
And. rallying on the wooded plain,
Offer up in Yengeese blood
An offering to the Indian's God.''
Another shot — a sharp, quick yell.
And then the stifled groan of pain,
Told that another red man fell, —
And blazed a sudden light again
Across that kingly brow and eye.
Like lightning on a clouded sky, —
And a low growl, like that which
thrills
The hunter of the Eastern hills,
Burst through clenched teeth and
rigid lip —
And when the Monarch spoke again,
His deep voice shook beneath its
rein,
And wrath and grief held fellow-
ship.
"Brother! methought when as but
now
I pondered on my nation's wrong.
With sadness on his shadowy brow
My father's spirit passed along!
He pointed to the far southwest.
Where sunset's gold was growing
dim.
And seemed to beckon me to him,
And to the forests of the blest! —
My father loved the Yengeese, when
They were but children, shelterless ;
For his great spirit at distress
Melted to woman's tenderness —
Nor was it given him to know
That children whom he cherished
then
Would rise at length, like armdd men.
To work his people's overthrow.
Yet thus it is ; — the God before
Whose awful shrine the pale ones
bow
Hath frowned upon and given o'er
The red man to the stranger now ! —
A few more moons, and there will be
No gathering to the council-tree ;
The scorched earth, the blackened
log.
The naked bones of warriors slain,
Be the sole relics which remain
Of the once mighty Wampanoag !
The forests of our hunting-land.
With all their old and solemn green.
Will bow before the Spoiler's axe.
The plough displace the hunter's
tracks.
And the tall Yengeese altar stand
Where the Great Spirit's shrine
hath been!
^' Yet, brother, from this awful hour
The dying curse of Metacom
Shall linger with abiding power
Upon the spoilers of my home.
The fearful veil of things to come
By Kitchtan's hand is lifted from
The shadows of the embryo years ;
And I can see more clearly through
Than ever visioned Powwow did.
For all the future comes unbid
Yet welcome to my tranced view.
As battle-yell to warrior-ears!
From stream and lake and hunting-
hill
Our tribes may vanish like a
dream,
THE FRATRICIDE.
335
And even my dark curse may
seem
Like idle winds when Heaven is
still —
No bodeful harbinger of ill,
But fiercer than the downright thun-
der
When yawns the mountain-rock asun-
der,
And riven pine and knotted oak
Are reeling to the fearftd stroke,
That curse shall work its master^s
will!
The bed of yon blue mountain stream
Shall pour a darker tide than rain —
The sea shall catch its blood-red
stain,
And broadly on its banks shall gleam
The steel of those who should be
brothers —
Yea, those whom one fond parent
nursed
Shall meet in strife, like fiends ac-
cursed.
And trample down the once loved
form,
While yet with breathing passion
warm,
As fiercely as they would another's ! ''
The morning star sat dimly on
The lighted eastern horizon —
The deadly glare of levelled gun
Came streaking through the twi-
light haze,
And naked to its reddest blaze
A hundred warriors sprang in view :
One dark red arm was tossed on
high —
One giant shout came hoarsely through
The clangor and the charging cry,
Just as across the scattering gloom.
Red as the naked hand of Doom,
The Yengeese volley hurtled by —
The arm — the voice of Metacom! —
One piercing shriek — one vengeful
yell.
Sent like an arrow to the sky,
Told when the hunter- monarch fell!
1829.
THE FRATRICIDE.
[In the recently published "History of
Wyoming," — a valley rendered classic
ground by the poetry of Campbell, — in
an account of the attack of Brandt and
Butler on the settlements in 1778, a fear-
ful circumstance is mentioned. A Tory,
who had joined the Indians and British,
discovered his own brother, whilst pursu-
ing the Americans, and, deaf to his en-
treaties, deliberately presented his rifle and
shot him dead on the spot. The murderer
fled to Canada.]
He stood on the brow of the well-
known hill,
Its few gray oaks moan'd over him
still —
The last of that forest which cast the
gloom
Of its shadow at eve o^er his child-
hood's home ;
And the beautiful valley beneath him
lay
With its quivering leaves, and its
streams at play,
And the sunshine over it all the
while
Like the golden shower of the Eastern
isle.
He knew the rock with its fingering
vine,
And its gray top touchM by the slant
sunshine,
And the delicate stream which crept
beneath
Soft as the flow of an infant's breath ;
And the flowers which lean'd to the
West wind's sigh,
Kissing each ripple which glided by ;
And he knew every valley and wooded
swell,
For the visions of childhood are treas-
ured well.
Why shook the old man as his eye
glanced down
That narrow ravine where the rude
cliffs frown,
336
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
With their shaggy brows and their
teeth of stone,
And their grim shade back from the
sunhght thrown?
What saw he there save the dreary
glen,
Where the shy fox crept from the eye
of men,
And the great ow4 sat in the leafy
limb
That the hateful sun might not look
on him?
Fix'd, glassy, and strange was that
old man's eye,
As if a spectre were steaUng by.
And glared it still on that narrow dell
Where thicker and browner the twi-
light fell ;^
Yet at every sigh of the fitful wind,
Or stirring of leaves in the wood
behind,
His wild glance wander'd the land-
scape o'er,
Then fix'd on that desolate dell once
Oh, who shall tell of the thoughts
which ran
Through the dizzied brain of that
gray old man?
His childhood's home — and his
father's toil —
And his sister's kiss — and his mother's
smile —
And his brother's laughter and game-
some mirth,
At the village school and the winter
hearth —
The beautiful thoughts of his early
time.
Ere his heart grew dark with its later
crime.
And darker and wilder his visions
came
Of the deadly feud and the midnight
flame.
Of the Indian's knife with its slaughter
red,
Of the ghastly forms of the scalpless
dead,
Of his own fierce deeds in that fearful
hour
When the terrible Brandt was forth
in power, —
And he clasp'd his hands o'er his
burning eye
To shadow the vision which glided
by.
It came with the rush of the battle-
storm —
With a brother's shaken and kneeling
form,
And his prayer for life when a brother's
arm
Was lifted above him for mortal harm,
And the fiendish curse, and the groan
of death,
And the welling of blood, and the
gurgling breath,
And the scalp torn off while each
nerve could feel
The wrenching hand and the jagged
steel !
And the old man groan'd — for he
saw, again.
The mangled corse of his kinsman
slain.
As it lay where his hand had hurPd
it then.
At the shadow'd foot of that fearful
glen ! —
And it rose erect, with the death-pang
grim.
And pointed its bloodied finger at
him ! —
And his heart grew cold — and the
curse of Cain
Burn'd like a fire in the old man's
brain.
Oh, had he not seen that spectre
rise
On the blue of the cold Canadian
skies ? —
From the lakes which sleep in the
ancient wood,
ETERNITY.
337
It had risen to whisper its tale of
blood,
And followed his bark to the sombre
shore,
And glared by night through the wig-
wam door ;
And here — on his own familiar hill —
It rose on his haunted vision still!
Whose corse was that which the
morrow's sun,
Through the opening boughs, look'd
calmly on?
There where those who bent o'er that
rigid face
Who well in its darkened lines might
trace
The features of him who, a traitor,
fled
From a brother whose blood himself
had shed.
And there — on the spot where he
strangely died —
They made the grave of the Fratricide!
1831.
ETERNITY.
[This poem was written by Mr. Whittier
in 1831, and was printed in the New
England Review, which paper he was then
editing. It was signed " Adrian," as were
many of his early poems.]
Boundless Eternity! the winged
sands
That mark the silent lapse of flitting
time
Are not for thee ; thine awful empire
stands
From age to age, unchangeable,
sublime :
Thy domes are spread where
thought can never climb,
In clouds and darkness, where vast
pillars rest.
I may not fathom thee : \ would
seem a crime
Thy being of its mystery to divest.
Or boldly hft thine awful veil with
hands unblest.
Thy ruins are the wrecks of systems ;
suns
Blaze a brief space of ages, and are
not ;
Worlds crumble and decay, creation
runs
To waste — then perishes and is
forgot ;
Yet thou, all changeless, heedest
not the blot.
Heaven speaks once more in thunder;
empty space
Trembles and wakes ; new worlds
in ether flit.
Teeming with new creative life, and
trace
Their mighty circles, such as others
shall displace.
Thine age is youth, thy youth is
hoary age.
Ever beginning, never ending, thou
Bearest inscribed upon thy ample
page,
Yesterday, forever, but as now
Thou art, thou hast been, shalt be :
though
I feel myself immortal, when on thee
I muse, I shrink to nothingness,
and bow
Myself before thee, dread Eternity,
With God coeval, coexisting, still to
be.
I go with thee till Time shall be no
more,
I stand with thee on Time's re-
motest verge.
Ten thousand years, ten thousand
times told o'er ;
Still, still with thee my onward
course I urge ;
And now no longer hear the end-
less surge
Of Time's light billows breaking on
the shore
Of distant earth ; no more the
solemn dirge —
Requiem of worlds, when such are
numbered o'er —
338
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
Steals b)^: still thou art moving on
fore verm ore.
From that dim distance would I turn
to gaze
With fondly searching glance, ujDon
the spot
Of brief existence, where I met the
blaze
Of morning, bursting on my humble
cot,
And gladness whispered of my
happy lot ;
And now 't is dwindled to a point —
a speck —
And now His nothing, and my eye
may not
Longer distinguish it amid the wreck
Of worlds in ruins, crushed at the
Almighty's beck.
Time — what is Time to thee ? a pass-
ing thought
To twice ten thousand ages — a
faint spark
To twice ten thousand suns ; a fibre
wrought
Into the web of infinite — a cork
Balanced against a world: we
hardly mark
Its being — even its name hath ceased
to be;
Thy wave hath swept it from us,
and thy dark
Mantle of years, in dim obscurity
Hath shrouded it around : Time —
what is Time to thee!
ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA.
[" Isabella, Infanta of Parma, and consort
of Joseph of Austria, predicted her own
death, immediately after her marriage with
the Emperor. Amidst the gayety and
splendor of Vienna and Presburg, she was
reserved and melancholy ; she believed that
Heaven had given her a view of the future,
and that her child, the namesake of the
great Maria Theresa, would perish with
her. Her prediction was fulfilled."]
Midst the palace-bowers of Hungary,
— imperial Presburg's pride, —
With the noble-born and beautiful
assembled at her side.
She stood, beneath the summer heaven,
— the soft winds sighing on.
Stirring the green and arching boughs,
like dancers in the sun.
The beautiful pomegranate's gold, the
snowy orange-bloom.
The lotus and the creeping vine, the
rose's meek perfume,
The willow crossing with its green
some statue's marble hair, —
All that might charm th' exquisite
sense, or light the soul, was there.
But she — a monarch's treasured one
— lean'd gloomily apart.
With her dark eye tearfully cast down
and a shadow on her heart.
Young, beautiful, and dearly loved,
what sorrow hath she known?
Are not the hearts and swords of all
held sacred as her own?
Is not her lord the kingliest in battle-
field or bower? —
The foremost in the council-hall, or
at the banquet hour?
Is not his love as pure and deep as
his own Danube's tide?
And wherefore in her princely home
weeps Isabel, his bride?
She raised her jewell'd hand and flung
her veiling tresses back.
Bathing its snowy tapering within
their glossy black. —
A tear fell on the orange leaves ; —
rich gem and mimic blossom.
And fringed robe shook fearfully upon
her sighing bosom :
'^ Smile on, smile on," she murmur'd
low, "for all is joy around.
Shadow and sunshine, stainless sky,
soft airs, and blossom'd ground ;
'T is meet the light of heart should
smile when nature's brow is fair,
And melody and fragrance meet, twin
sisters of the air!
ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA.
339
" But ask not me to share with you
the beauty of the scene —
The fountain-fall, mosaic walk, and
tessellated green ;
And point not to the mild blue sky,
or glorious summer sun :
I know how very fair is all the hand
of God hath done —
The hills, the sky, the sun-lit cloud,
the fountain leaping forth.
The swaying trees, the scented flow-
ers, the dark green robes of
earth —
I love them still ; yet I have learnM
to turn aside from all.
And never more my heart must own
their sweet but fatal thrall !
" And I could love the noble one
whose mighty name I bear.
And closer to my bursting heart his
h allowed image wear ;
And I could watch our sweet young
flower, unfolding day by day.
And taste of that unearthly bliss
which mothers only may ;
But no, I may not cling to earth —
that voice is in my ear.
That shadow lingers by my side —
the death-wail and the bier.
The cold and starless night of death
where day may never beam.
The silence and the loathsomeness,
the sleep which hath no dream !
" O God ! to leave this fair bright
world, and, more than all, to
know
The moment when the Spectral One
shall deal his fearful blow ;
To know the day, the very hour ; to
feel the tide roll on ;
To shudder at the gloom before, and
weep the sunshine gone ;
To count the days, the few short days,
of light and life and breath, —
Between me and the noisome grave —
the voiceless home of death, —
Alas! — if, knowing, feeling this, I
murmur at my doom,
Let not thy frowning, O my God !
lend darkness to the tomb.
"Oh, I have borne my spirit up, and
smiled amid the chill
Remembrance of my certain doom,
which lingers with me still :
I would not cloud our fair child's brow,
nor let a tear-drop dim
The eye that met my wedded lord's,
lest it should sadden him.
But there are moments when the gush
of feeling hath its way ;
That hidden tide of unnamed woe nor
fear nor love may stay.
Smile on, smile on, light-hearted ones,
your sun of joy is high ;
Smile on, and leave the doom'd of
Heaven alone to weep and die."
A funeral chant was wailing through
Vienna's holy pile ;
A coffin with its gorgeous pall was
borne along the aisle ;
The banners of a kingly race waved
high above the dead ;
A mighty band of mourners came —
a king was at its head,
A youthful king, with mournful tread
and dim and tearful eye —
He had not dream'd that one so pure
as his fair bride could die ;
And sad and wild above the throng
the funeral anthem rung :
"Mourn for the hope of Austria!
Mourn for the loved and young! "
The wail w^ent up from other lands —
the valleys of the Hun,
Fair Parma with its orange bowers
and hills of vine and sun ;
The lihes of imperial France droop'd
as the sound went by,
The long lament of cloistered Spain
was mingled with the cry ;
The dwellers in Colorno's halls, the
Slowak at his cave.
The bow'd at the Escurial, the Mag-
yar sternly brave —
540
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
^11 wept the early-stricken flower, and
burst from every tongue :
^ Mourn for the dark-eyed Isabel!
Mourn for the loved and young ! "
[831.
STANZAS.
[" Art thou beautiful ? — Live, then, in ac-
cordance with the curious make and frame
)f thy creation ; and let the beauty of thy
)erson teach thee to beautify thy mind with
loliness, the ornament of the beloved of
3od." — William Penn.]
Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one,
3f brown in the shadow and gold in
the sun!
Free should their delicate lustre be
thrown
3'er a forehead more pure than the
Parian stone —
Shaming the light of those Orient
pearls
Which bind o'er its whiteness thy soft
wreathing curls.
Smile — for thy glance on the mirror
is thrown,
And the face of an angel is meeting
thine own!
Beautiful creature — I marvel not
That thy cheek a loveUer tint hath
caught ;
And the kindling light of thine eye
hath told
Of a dearer wealth than the miser's
gold.
Away, away — there is danger here —
A terrible phantom is bending near ;
Ghastly and sunken, his rayless eye
Scowls on thy loveliness scornfully —
With no human look — with no human
breath.
He stands beside thee, — the haunter.
Death !
Fly! but, alas! he will follow still,
Like a moonlight shadow, beyond thy
will;
In thy noon-day walk — in thy mid-
night sleep,
Close at thy hand will that phantom
keep —
Still in thine ear shall his whispers
be —
Woe, that such phantom should fol-
low thee!
In the lighted hall where the dancers
go,
Like beautiful spirits, to and fro ;
When thy fair arms glance in their
stainless white.
Like ivory bathed in still moonlight ;
And not one star in the holy sky
Hath a clearer light than thine own
blue eye !
Oh, then — even then — he will follow
thee.
As the ripple follows the bark at sea ;
In the soften'd light — in the turning
dance —
He will fix on thine his dead, cold
glance —
The chill of his breath on thy cheek
shall linger,
And thy warm blood shrink from his
icy finger !
And yet there is hope. Embrace it
now.
While thy soul is open as thy brow ;
While thy heart is fresh — while its
feelings still
Gush clear as the unsoiPd mountain-
rill —
And thy smiles are free as the airs of
spring,
Greeting and blessing each breathing
thing.
When the after cares of thy life shall
come.
When the bud shall wither before its
bloom ;
When thy soul is sick of the empti-
ness
And changeful fashion of human bliss ;
THE MISSIONARY.
341
And the weary torpor of blighted
feehng
Over thy heart as ice is steahng —
Then, when thy spirit is turned above,
By the mild rebuke of the Chastener's
love ;
When the hope of that joy in thy
heart is stirrd,
Which eye hath not seen, nor ear
hath heard, —
Then will that phantom of darkness
be
Gladness, and Promise, and Bliss to
thee.
1832.
THE MISSIONARY.
[" It is an awful, an arduous thing to root
out every affection for earthly things, so as
to hve only for another world. I am now-
far, very far, from you all ; and as often as
I look around and see the Indian scenery,
I sigh to think of the distance which sepa-
rates us." — Letters of Henry M arty n from
Ifidla.']
" Say, whose is this fair picture, which
the light
From the unshutter'd window rests
upon
Even as a lingering halo ? — Beautiful !
The keen, fine eye of manhood, and
■ a lip
Lovely as that of Hylas, and impressed
With the bright signet of some bril-
liant thought —
That broad expanse of forehead, clear
and high.
Marked visibly with the characters of
mind.
And the free locks around it, raven
black.
Luxuriant and unsilverM — who was
he?''
A friend, a more than brother. In
the spring
And glory of his being he went forth
From the embraces of devoted friends,
From ease and quiet happiness, from
more —
From the warm heart that loved him
with a love
Holier than earthly passion, and to
whom
The beauty of his spirit shone above
The charms of perishing nature. He
went forth
Strengthen'd to suffer — gifted to
subdue
The might of human passion — to
pass on
Quietly to the sacrifice of all
The lofty hopes of boyhood, and to
turn
The high ambition written on that
brow.
From its first dream of power and
human fame,
Unto a task of seeming lowliness —
Yet God-like in its purpose. He
w^ent forth
To bind the broken spirit — to pluck
back
The heathen from the w^heel of Jug-
gernaut —
To place the spiritual image of a God
Holy and just and true, before the
eye
Of the dark-minded Brahmin — and
unseal
The holy pages of the Book of Life,
Fraught with sublimer mysteries than
all
The sacred tomes of Vedas — to un-
bind
The widow from her sacrifice — and
save
The perishing infant from the wor-
shipped river!
" And, lady, where is he ? " He slum-
bers well
Beneath the shadow of an Indian
palm.
There is no stone above his grave.
The wind,
Hot from the desert, as it stirs the
leaves
342
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
Of neighboring bananas, sighs alone
Over his place of slumber.
" God forbid
That he should die alone!'' — Nay,
not alone.
His God was with him in that last
dread hour —
His great arm underneath him, and
His smile
Melting into a spirit full of peace.
And one kind friend, a human friend,
was near —
One whom his teachings and his ear-
nest prayers
Had snatched as from the burning.
He alone
Felt the last pressure of his failing
hand,
Caught the last glimpses of his closing
eye.
And laid the green turf over him with
tears.
And left him with his God.
" And was it well,
Dear lady, that this noble mind should
cast
Its rich gifts on the waters? — That a
heart
Full of all gentleness and truth and
love
Should wither on the suicidal shrine
Of a mistaken duty? If I read
Aright the fine intelligence which
fills
That amplitude of brow, and gazes
out
Like an indwelling spirit from that
eye.
He might have borne him loftily
among
The proudest of his land, and with a
step
Unfaltering ever, steadfast and secure.
Gone up the paths of greatness, —
bearing still
A sister spirit with him, as some star.
Pre-eminent in Heaven, leads steadily
. up
A kindred watcher, with its fainter
beams
Baptized in its great glory. Was it
well
That all this promise of the heart and
mind
Should perish from the earth, and leave
no trace.
Unfolding like the Cereus of the
clime
Which hath its sepulchre, but in the j
night
Of pagan desolation — was it well ? "
Thy will be done, O Father! — it was
well.
What are the honors of a perishing
world
GraspM by a palsied finger? — the
applause
Of the unthoughtful multitude which
greets
The dull ear of decay? — the wealth
that loads
The bier with costly drapery, and
shines
In tinsel on the coffin, and builds up
The cold substantial monument?
Can these
Bear up the sinking spirit in that
hour
When heart and flesh are failing, and
the grave
Is opening under us? Oh, dearer
then 1
The memory of a kind deed done to I
him
Who was our enemy, one gratefiil
tear
In the meek eye of virtuous suffering.
One smile calPd up by unseen charity
On the wan cheek of hunger, or one
prayer
Breathed from the bosom of the peni-
tent—
The stain'd with crime and outcast,
unto whom
Our mild rebuke and tenderness of
love
A merciful God hath bless'd.
THE MISSIONARY.
343
*^ But, lady, say,
Did he not sometimes almost sink
beneath
The burden of his toil, and turn aside
To weep above his sacrifice, and cast
A sorrowing glance upon his child-
hood's home —
Still green in memory? Clung not to
his heart
Something of earthly hope uncruci-
fied,
Of earthly thought unchasten'd ? Did
he bring
Life's warm affections to the sacri-
fice—
Its loves, hopes, sorrows — and be-
come as one
Knowing no kindred but a perishing
world.
No love but of the sin-endangered
soul.
No hope but of the winning back to
life
Of the dead nations, and no passing
thought
Save of the errand wherewith he was
sent
As to a martyrdom?"
Nay, though the heart
Be consecrated to the holiest work
Vouchsafed to mortal effort, there
will be
Ties of the earth around it, and,
through all
Its perilous devotion, it must keep
Its own humanity. And it is well.
Else why wept He, who with our na-
ture veiPd
The spirit of a God, o'er lost Jeru-
salem,
And the cold grave of Lazarus ? And
why
In the dim garden rose his earnest
prayer.
That from his Hps the cup of suffering
Might pass, if it were possible?
My friend
Was of a gentle nature, and his heart
Gush'd like a river-fountain of the
hills.
Ceaseless and lavish, at a kindly
smile,
A word of welcome, or a tone of love.
Freely his letters to his friends dis-
closed
His yearnings for the quiet haunts of
home —
For love and its companionship, and
all
The blessings left behind him ; yet
above
Its sorrows and its clouds his spirit
rose.
Tearful and yet triumphant, taking
hold
Of the eternal promises of God,
And steadfast in its faith. Here are
some lines
Penn'd in his lonely mission-house,
and sent
To a dear friend of his who even now
Lingers above them with a mournful
joy.
Holding them well nigh sacred — as
a leaf
Pluck'd from the record of a breaking
heart.
AN EVENING IN BURMAH.
A night of wonder! — piled afar
With ebon feet and crests of snow,
Like Himalayah's peaks, which bar
The sunset and the sunset's star
From half the shadow'd vale below,
Volumed and vast the dense clouds
lie.
And over them, and down the sky.
Broadly and pale the lightnings go.
Above, the pleasant moon is seen,
Pale journeyer to her own loved
West!
Like some bright spirit sent between
The earth and heaven, she seems to
lean
Wearily on the cloud and rest ;
And lisfht from her unsullied brow
;44
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
rhat gloomy cloud is gathering now
Along each wreath'd and whitening
crest.
\nd what a strength of light and
shade
Is checkering all the earth below! —
'\nd through the jungle's verdant
braid
3f tangled vine and wild reed made,
What blossoms in the moonhght
glow ! —
rhe Indian rose's loveliness,
rhe ceiba with its crimson dress.
The myrtle with its bloom of snow.
\nd flitting in the fragrant air,
Or nestling in the shadowy trees,
\ thousand bright-hued birds are
there —
Strange plumage quivering, wild and
rare.
With every faintly-breathing breeze ;
^nd, wet with dew from roses shed,
The Bulbul droops her weary head.
Forgetful of her melodies.
Uprising from the orange leaves
The tall pagoda's turrets glow ;
3'er graceful shaft and fretted eaves
[ts verdant web the myrtle weaves,
And hangs in flowering wreaths
below ;
And where the clustered palms eclipse
The moonbeams, from its marble lips
The fountain's silver waters flow.
^es, all is lovely — earth and air —
As aught beneath the sky may be ;
And yet my thoughts are wandering
where
My native rocks lie bleak and bare —
A weary way beyond the sea.
The yearning spirit is not here ;
[t lingers on a spot more dear
Than India's brightest bowers to
me.
Methinks I tread the well-known
street —
The tree my childhood loved is
there.
Its bare-worn roots are at my feet.
And through its open boughs I meet
White glimpses of the place of
prayer —
And unforgotten eyes again
Are glancing through the cottage pane.
Than Asia's lustrous eyes more fair.
What though, with every fitful gush
Of night-wind, spicy odors come ;
And hues of beauty glow and flush
From matted vine and wild rose-bush ;
And music's sweetest, faintest hum
Steals through the moonlight, as in
dreams, —
Afar from all my spirit seems
Amid the dearer scenes of home!
A holy name — the name of home! —
Yet where, O wandering heart, is
thine?
Here where the dusky heathen come
To bow before the deaf and dumb,
Dead idols of their own design,
Where deep in Ganges' worshipp'd
tide
The infant sinks — and on its side
The widow's funeral altars shine!
Here^ where 'mid light and song and
flowers
The priceless soul in ruin lies —
Lost — dead to all those better powers
Which link a fallen world like ours
To God's own holy Paradise ;
Where open sin and hideous crime
Are like the foliage of their clime —
The unshorn growth of centuries !
Turn, then, my heart — thy home '«;
here ;
No other now remains for thee : —
The smile of love, and friendship's
tear.
The tones that melted on thine ear,
The mutual thrill of sympathy.
The welcome of the household
band,
MASSACHUSETTS.
345
The pressure of the lip and hand,
Thou mayest not hear, nor feel, nor
see.
God of my spirit! — Thou, alone.
Who watchest o'er my pillowed
head,
Whose ear is open to the moan
And sorrowing of thy child, hast
known
The grief which at my heart has
fed,—
The struggle of my soul to rise
Above its earth-born sympathies, —
The tears of many a sleepless bed !
Oh, be Thine arm, as it hath been,
In every test of heart and faith —
The Tempter's doubt — the wiles of
men —
The heathen's scoff — the bosom
sin —
A helper and a stay beneath,
A strength in weakness 'mid the strife
And anguish of my wasting life —
My solace and my hope in death !
MASSACHUSETTS.
[Written on hearing that the Resolutions
of the Legislature of Massachusetts on the
subject of Slavery, presented by. Hon. C.
CUSHING to the House of Representatives
of the United States, have been laid on the
table unread and unreferred, under the in-
famous rule of" Pati^on's Resolution."]
And have they spurn'd //ly word.
Thou of the old Thirteen!
Whose soil, where Freedom's blood
first pour'd
Hath yet a darker green?
Tread the weak Southron's pride and
lust
Thy name and councils in the dust?
And have they closed thy mouth,
And fix'd the padlock fast?
Slave of the mean and tyrant South !
Is this thy fate at last ?
Old Massachusetts ! can it be
That thus thy sons must speak of
thee?
Call from the Capitol
Thy chosen ones again —
Unmeet for them the base control
Of Slavery's curbing rein !
Unmeet for necks Hke theirs to feel
The chafing of the despot's heel!
Call back to Quincy's shade
That steadfast son of thine ;
Go — if thy homage must be paid
To Slavery's pagod-shrine,
Seek out some meaner offering than
The free-born soul of that old man.
Call that true spirit back,
So eloquent and young;
In his own vale of Merrimack
No chains are on his tongue!
Better to breathe its cold, keen air.
Than wear the Southron's shackle
there.
Ay, let them hasten home,
And render up their trust ;
Through them the Pilgrim-state is
dumb.
Her proud lip in the dust!
Her counsels and her gentlest word
Of warning spurn'd aside, unheard!
Let them come back, and shake
The base dust from their feet ;
And with their tale of outrage wake
The free hearts whom they meet ;
And show before indignant men
The scars where Slavery's chain has
been.
Back from the Capitol —
It is no place for thee!
Beneath the arch of Heaven's blue
wall
Thy voice may still be free !
What power shall chain thy spirit
there,
In God's free sun and freer air?
346
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
A voice is calling thee,
P>om all the martyr-graves
Of those stern men, in death made
free,
Who could not live as slaves.
The slumberings of thy honored dead
Are for thy sake disquieted !
The curse of Slavery comes
Still nearer, day by day ;
Shall thy pure altars and thy homes
Become the Spoiler's prey?
Shall the dull tread of fetter'd slaves
Sound o'er thy old and holy graves?
Pride of the old Thirteen!
That curse may yet be stayed —
Stand thou, in Freedom's strength,
between
The living and the dead ;
Stand forth, for God and Liberty
In one strong effort worthy thee!
Once more let Faneuil Hall
By freemen's feet be trod.
And give the echoes of its wall
Once more to Freedom's God!
And in the midst, unseen, shall stand
The mighty fathers of thy land.
Thy gathered sons shall feel
The soul of Adams near,
And Otis with his fiery zeal.
And Wafi-ren's onward cheer ;
And heart to heart shall thrill as when
They moved and spake as living men.
Fling, from thy Capitol,
Thy banner to the light,
And, o'er thy Charter's sacred scroll.
For Freedom and the Right,
Breathe once again thy vows, un-
broken —
Speak once again as thou hast spoken.
On thy bleak hills, speak out!
A WORLD thy words shall hear;
And they Avho listen round about,
In friendship, or in fear,
Shall know thee still, when sorest
tried,
^* Unshaken and unterrified!"^
1837.
ADDRESS.
[Written for the opening of " Pennsyl-
vania Hall," dedicated to Free Discus-
sion, Virtue, Liberty, and Independence,
on the 15th of the 5ih month, 1838.J
Not with the splendors of the days
of old,
The spoil of nations, and "barbaric
gold" —
No weapons wrested from the fields
of blood.
Where dark and stern the unyielding
Roman stood.
And the proud eagles of his cohorts
saw
A world, war-wasted, crouching to
his law —
Nor blazoned car — nor banners float-
ing gay.
Like those which swept along the
Appian w^ay.
When, to the welcome of imperial
Rome,
The victor warrior came in^ triumph
home.
And trumpet-peal, and shoutings wild
and high.
Stirred the blue quiet of the Italian
sky;
But calm and grateful, prayerful and
sincere.
As Christian freemen, only, gathering
here.
We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall,
Pillar and arch, entablature and wall,
As Virtue's shrine — as Liberty's
abode —
Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's
God!
1" Massachusetts hns held her way right
onward, unshaken, unreduced, unterrified."
— Speech of C. C 11 siting in the House of
Represetiiatives of the United States, 1836.
ADDRESS.
347
Oh ! loftier halls, 'neath brighter skies
than these.
Stood darkly mirrored in the ^gean
seas,
Pillar and shrine — and lifelike stat-
ues seen,
Graceful and pure, the marble shafts
between,
Where glorious Athens from her
rocky hill
Saw Art and Beauty subject to her
will —
And the chaste temple, and the classic
grove —
The hall of sages — and the bowers
of love,
Arch, fane, and column, graced the
shores, and gave
Their shadows to the blue Saronic
wave ;
And statelier rose, on Tiber's winding
side.
The Pantheon's dome — the Coli-
seum's pride —
The Capitol, whose arches backward
flung
The deep, clear cadence of the Roman
tongue,
Whence stern decrees, like words of
fate, w-ent forth
To the awed nations of a conquered
earth.
Where the proud Caesars in their
glory came.
And Brutus lightened from his lips of
flame !
Yet in the porches of Athena's halls.
And in the shadows of her stately
walls.
Lurked the sad bondman, and his
tears of woe
Wet the cold marble with unheeded
flow :
And fetters clanked beneath the silver
dome
Of the proud Pantheon of imperious
Rome.
Oh! not for him — the chained and
stricken slave —
By Tiber's shore, or blue /Egina's
wave.
In the thronged forum, or the sages'
seat,
The bold lip pleaded, and the warm
heart beat ;
No soul of sorrow^ melted at his pain,
No tear of pity rusted on his chain !
But this fair Hall, to Truth and Free-
dom given.
Pledged to the Right before all Earth
and Heaven,
A free arena for the strife of mind.
To caste, or sect, or color unconfined.
Shall thrill with echoes, such as ne'er
of old
From Roman hall, or Grecian temple
rolled ;
Thoughts shall find utterance, such
as never yet
The Propylaea or the Forum met.
Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife
Shall win applauses with the waste of
life ;
No lordly lictor urge the barbarous
game —
No wanton Lais glory in her shame.
But here the tear of sympathy shall
flow,
As the ear listens to the tale of
woe ;
Here, in stern judgment of the op-
pressor's wrong —
Shall strong rebukings thrill on Free-
dom's tongue —
No partial justice hold the unequal
scale —
No pride of caste a brother's rights
assail —
No tvrant's mandates echo from this
wall,
Holv to Freedom and the Rights of
'All!
But a fair field, where mind may close
with mind.
Free as the sunshine and the chainless
wind ;
Where the high trust is fixed on
Truth alone,
348
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
A.nd bonds and fetters from the soul
are thrown ;
Where wealth, and rank, and worldly
pomp, and might,
Yield to the presence of the True and
Right.
And fitting is it that this Hall should
stand
Where Pennsylvania's Founder led
his band,
From thy blue waters, Delaware! —
to press
The virgin verdure of the wilderness.
Here, where all Europe with amaze-
ment saw
The souPs high freedom trammelled
by no law ;
Here, where the fierce and warlike
forest-men
Gathered in peace, around the home
of Penn,
Awed by the weapons Love alone
had given,
Drawn from the holy armory of
Heaven :
Where Nature's voice against the
bondman's wrong
First found an earnest and indignant
tongue ;
Where Lay's bold message to the
proud was borne,
And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's
manly scorn —
Fitting it is that here, where Freedom
first
From her fair feet shook off the Old
World's dust.
Spread her white pinions to our West-
ern blast,
And her free tresses to our sunshine
cast,
One Hall should rise redeemed from
Slavery's ban —
One Temple sacred to the Rights of
Man!
Oh! if the spirits of the parted
come.
Visiting angels, to their olden home ;
If the dead fathers of the land look
forth
From their far dwellings, to the things
of earth —
Is it a dream, that with their eyes of
love.
They gaze now on us from the bowers
above ?
Lay's ardent soul — and Benezet the
mild.
Steadfast in faith, yet gentle as a
child —
Meek-hearted Woolman, — and that
brother-band.
The sorrowing exiles from their
" Fatherland,"
Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's
bowers of vine.
And the blue beauty of their glorious
Rhine,
To seek amidst our solemn depths of
wood
Freedom from man and holy peace
with God ;
Who first of all their testimonial gave
Against the oppressor, — for the out-
cast slave, —
Is it a dream that such as these look
down.
And with their blessing our rejoicings
crown ?
Let us rejoice, that, while the pulpit's
door
Is barred against the pleaders for the
poor;
While the church, wrangling upon
points of faith,
Forgets her bondmen suffering unto
death ;
While crafty traffic and the lust of gain
Unite to forge oppression's triple
chain.
One door is open, and one Temple
free —
As a resting place for hunted Liberty !
Where men may speak, unshackled
and unawed,
High words of truth, for freedom and
for God.
THE RESPONSE.
349
And when that truth its perfect work
hath done,
And rich with blessings o'er our land
hath gone ;
When not a slave beneath his yoke
shall pine.
From broad Potomac to the far Sa-
bine;
When unto angel-lips at last is given
The silver trump of Jubilee to Heaven ;
And from Virginia's plains — Ken-
tucky's shades,
And through the dim Floridian ever-
glades,
Rises, to meet that angel-trumpet's
sound,
The voice of millions from their chains
unbound —
Then, though this Hall be crumbling
in decay.
Its strong walls blending with the
common clay,
Yet, round the ruins of its strength
shall stand
The best and noblest of a ransomed
land —
Pilgrims, like those who throng around
the shrine
Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine! —
A prouder glory shall that ruin own
Than that which lingers round the
Parthenon.
Here shall the child of after years be
taught
The work of Freedom which his
fathers wrought —
Told of the trials of the present hour,
Our weary strife with prejudice and
power, —
How the high errand quickened
woman's soul.
And touched her lip as with a living
coal —
How Freedom's martyrs kept their
lofty faith,
True and unwavering, unto bonds and
death. —
The pencil's art shall sketch the
ruined Hall,
The Muses' garland crown its aged
wall,
And History's pen for after times
record
Its consecration unto Freedom's
God!
1838.
THE RESPONSE.
[" To agitate the question (Slavery) anew,
is not only impolitic, but it is a virtual
breach of good faith to our brethren of the
South ; an unwarrantable interference with
their domestic relations and institutions."
" I can never, in the official station which I
occupy, consent to countenaiice a course
which may jeopard the peace and harmony
of the Union." — Gover72or Porter s Inau-
gural Message, 1838.]
No " countenance " of his, forsooth !
Who asked it at his vassal hands?
Who looked for homage done to
Truth,
By party's vile and hateful bands ?
Who dreamed that one by them pos-
sessed.
Would lay for her his spear in rest?
His ^* countenance"! well, let it light
The human robber to his spoil ! —
Let those who track the bondman's
flight,
Like bloodhounds o'er our once
free soil,
Bask in its sunshine while they may.
And howl its praises on their way ;
We ask no boon : our rights we
claim —
Free press and thought — free
tongue and pen —
The right to speak in Freedom's
name,
As Pennsylvanians and as men ;
To do, by Lynch law unforbid,
What our own Rush and Franklin did.
Ay, there we stand, with planted feet.
Steadfast, where those old worthies
stood : —
350
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
Upon us let the tempest beat,
Around us swell and surge the
flood :
We fail or triumph on that spot ;
God helping us, we falter not.
" A breach of plighted faith ? '"' For
shame! —
Who voted for that ^' breach '' ?
Who gave
In the state councils, vote and name
For freedom for the District slave?
Consistent patriot! go, forswear,
Blot out, *' expunge '' the record
there ! ^
Go, eat thy words.- Shall H C
Turn round — a moral harlequin?
And arch V B wipe away
The stains of his Missouri sin?
And shall that one unlucky vote
Stick, burr-like, in f/iy honest throat?
No — do thy part in ^^ putting down '' -
The friends of Freedom : — sum-
mon out
The parson in his saintly gown,
To curse the outlawed roundabout,
In concert with the Belial brood —
The Balaam of '' the brotherhood '^!
Quench every free discussion light —
Clap on the legislative snuffers,
And caulk with '' resolutions ^' tight
The ghastly rents the Union suf-
fers !
Let church and state brand Abolition
As heresy and rank sedition.
Choke down, at once, each breathing
thing,
1 It ought to be borne in mind that David
R. Porter voted in the Legislature to
instruct the congressional delegation of
Pennsylvania to use their influence for the
abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia.
2" He [Martin Van Buren] thinks the
abolitionists may be put down." — Rich-
mond ( Fa.) Enquirer.
That whispers of the Rights of
Man : —
Gag the free girl who dares to sing
Of freedom o'er her dairy pan : —
Dog the old farmer's steps about,
And hunt his cherished treason out.
Go, hunt sedition. — Search for that
In every pedlef s cart of rags ;
Pry into every Quaker's hat,
And DocTOK Fussell's saddle
bags !
Lest treason wrap, with all its ills,
Around his powders and his pills.
Where Chester's oak and walnut
shades
With slavery-laden breezes stir.
And on the hills, and in the glades
Of Bucks and honest Lancaster,
Are heads which think and hearts
which feel —
Flints to the Abolition steel!
Ho! send ye down a corporal's guard
With flow of flag and beat of
drum —
Storm LiNDLEY Coates's poultry
yard.
Beleaguer Thomas Whitson's
home!
Beat up the Quaker quarters — show
Your valor to an unarmed foe!
Do more. Fill up your loathsome
jails
With faithful men and women —
set
The scaffold up in these green vales.
And let their verdant turf be wet
With blood of unresisting men —
Ay, do all this, and more, — what
then ?
Think ye, one heart of man and child
Will falter from his lofty faith,
At the mob's tumult, fierce and wild —
The prison cell — the shameful
death ?
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
351
No!-
The weakest of our band is strong !
Oh! while before us visions come
Of slave ships on Virginia's coast —
Of mothers in their childless home,
Like Rachel, sorrowing o'er the
lost —
The slave-gang scourged upon its
way —
The bloodhound and his human
prey —
We cannot falter! Did we so,
The stones beneath would murmur
out,
And all the winds that round us blow
Would whisper of our shame about.
No! let the tempest rock the land,
Our faith shall live — our truth shall
stand.
True as the Vaudois hemmed around
With Papal fire and Roman steel —
Firm as the Christian heroine bound
Upon Domitian's torturing wheel.
We 'bate no breath — we curb no
thought —
Come what may come, we falter
not!
STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.
1844.
[Written on reading the sentence of John
L. Brown, ofSouth Carolina, to be executed
on the 25th of 4th month, 1844, for the crime
of assisting a female slave to escape from
bondage. The sentence was afterwards
commuted.]
Ho! thou who seekest late and long
A license from the Holy Book
For brutal lust and hell's red wrong,
Man of the pulpit, look! —
Lift up those cold and atheist eyes.
This ripe fruit of thy teaching see ;
And tell us how to Heaven will rise
The incense of this sacrifice —
This blossom of the Gallows
Tree ! —
Search out for Slavery's hour of
need
Some fitting text of sacred writ ; ^
Give Heaven the credit of a deed
Which shames the nether pit.
Kneel, smooth blasphemer, unto Him
Whose truth is on thy lips a lie.
Ask that His bright-winged cherubim
May bend around that scaffold grim
To guard and bless and sanctify! —
Ho! champion of the people's cause —
Suspend thy loud and vain rebuke
Of foreign wrong and Old World laws,
Man of the Senate, look! —
Was this the promise of the free, —
The great hope of our early time, —
That Slavery's poison vine should be
Upborne by Freedom's prayer-nursed
tree,
O'erclustered with such fruits of
crime? —
Send out the summons, East and
West,
And South and North, let all be
there.
Where he who pitied the oppressed
Swings out in sun and air.
Let not a democratic hand
The grisly hangman's task refuse ;
There let each loyal patriot stand
Awaiting Slavery's command
To twist the rope and draw the
noose !
But vain is irony — unmeet
Its cold rebuke for deeds which
start
In fiery and indignant beat
The pulses of the heart.
Leave studied wit, and guarded phrase ;
And all that kindled heart can feel
1 Three new publications, from the pens
of Dr. Junkin, President of Miami College,
Alexander McCaine of the Methodist Prot-
estant church, and of a clergyman of the
Cincinnati Synod, defending Slavery on
Scriptural ground, have recently made their
appearance.
552
EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS.
^peak out in earnest words which
raise,
Where'er they fall, an answering
blaze,
Like flints which strike the fire from
steel.
Still let a mousing priesthood ply
Their garbled text and gloss of sin,
'^nd make the lettered scroll deny
Its living soul within ;
Still let the place-fed titled knave
Plead Robbery's right with pur-
chased lips,
A.nd tell us that our fathers gave
For Freedom's pedestal, a slave.
For frieze and moulding, chains and
whips! —
But ye who own that higher law
Whose tables in the heart are set,
Speak out in words of power and awe
That God is living yet!
Breathe forth once more those tones
sublime
Which thrilled the burdened proph-
et's lyre.
And in a dark and evil time
Smote down on Israel's fast of crime
And gift of blood, a rain of fire!
Oh, not for us the graceful lay.
To whose soft measures lightly
move
The Dryad and the woodland Fay,
Overlooked by Mirth and Love ;
But such a stern and startling strain
As Britain's hunted bards flang
down
From Snowden, to the conquered
plain,
Where harshly clanked the Saxon
chain
On trampled field and smoking
town.
By Liberty^s dishonored name,
By man's lost hope, and failing
trust,
By words and deeds, which bow with
shame
Our foreheads to the dust, —
By the exulting tyrant's sneer,
Borne to us from the Old World's
thrones.
And by their grief, who pining hear,
In sunless mines and dungeons drear.
How Freedom's land her faith dis-
owns ; —
Speak out in acts: the time for words
Has passed, and deeds alone suffice ;
In the loud clang of meeting swords
The softer music dies!
Act — act, in God's name, while ye
may,
Smite from the church her leprous
limb.
Throw open to the light of day
The bondman's cell, and break away
The chains the state has bound on
him.
Ho! every true and living soul.
To Freedom's perilled altar bear
The freeman's and the Christian's
w^hole.
Tongue, pen, and vote, and prayer!
One last great battle for the Right, —
One short, sharp struggle to be
free ! —
To do is to succeed — our fight
Is waged in Heaven's approving
sight —
The smile of God is Victory!
1844.
NOTES.
Page I. Mogg Megone.
MOGG Megone, or Hegone, was a
leader among the Saco Indians, in the
bloody war of 1677. He attacked and cap-
tured the garrison at Black Point, October
12th of that year ; and cut off, at the same
time, a party of Englishmen near Saco
River. From a deed signed by this Indian
in 1664, and from other circumstances, it
seems that, previous to the war, he had
mingled much with the colonists. On this
account, he was probably selected by the
principal sachems as their agent in the
treaty signed in November, 1676.
Page 2. Casfine.
Baron de St. Castine came to Canada
in 1644. Leaving his civilized compan-
ions, he plunged into the great wilder-
ness and settled among the Penobscot
Indians, near the mouth of their noble
river. He here took for his wives the
daughters of the great Modocawando, —
the most powerful sachem of the East.
His castle was plundered by Governor An-
dros, during his reckless administration;
and the enraged Baron is supposed to have
excited the Indians into open hostility to
the English.
Page 2. yocelyfi.
The owner and commander of the garri-
son at Black Point, which Mogg attacked
and plundered. He was an old man at the
period to which the tale relates.
Page 2. Phillips.
Major Phillips, one of the principal men
of the Colony. His garrison sustained a
long and terrible siege by the savages. As
a magistrate and a gentleman, he exacted of
his plebeian neighbors a remarkable de-
gree of deference. The Court Records of
the settlement inform us that an individual
was fined for the heinous offence of saying
2 A 353
that " Major Phillips's mare was as lean as
an Indian dog."
Page 2. Harmon,
Captain Harmon, of Georgiana, now
York, was, for many years, the terror of
the Eastern Indians. In one of his ex-
peditions up the Kennebec River, at the
head of a party of rangers, he discovered
twenty of the savages asleep by a large fire.
Cautiously creeping towards them until he
was certain of his aim, he ordered his men
to single out their objects. The first dis-
charge killed or mortally wounded the
whole number of the unconscious sleepers.
Page 2. Vine-hung isle.
Wood Island, near the mouth of the
Saco. It was visited by the Sieur de
Monts and Champlain, in 1603. The fol-
lowing extract, from the journal of the latter,
relates to it : " Having left the Kennebec,
we ran^long the coast to the westward, and
cast anchor under a small island, near the
mainland, where we saw twenty or more
natives. I here visited an island, beautifully
clothed with a fine growth of forest trees,
particularly of the oak and walnut; and
overspread with vines, that, in their season,
produce excellent grapes. We named it
the island of Bacchus." — Les Voyages de
Sietir Champlain, Li v. 2, c. 8.
Page 2. Bonython.
John Bonython was the son of Richard
Bonython, Gent., one of the most efficient
and able magistrates of the Colony. John
proved to be " a degenerate plant." In
1635, we find, by the Court Records, that,
for some offence, he was fined 40J. In
1640, he was fined for abuse toward R. Gib-
son, the minister, and Mary his wife. Soon
after he was fined for disorderly conduct in
the house of his father. In 1645, the " Great
and General Court " adjudged " John Bony-
354
NOTES.
hon outlawed, and incapable of any of his
Vlajesty's laws, and proclaimed him a rebel."
Court Records of the Province,- 1645.) In
:65i, he bade defiance to the laws of Mass-
ichusetts, and was again outlawed. He
icted independently of all law and author-
ty; and hence, doubtless, his burlesque
itle of "The Sagamore of Saco," which has
:ome down to the present generation in the
bllowing epitaph : —
'Here lies Bonython ; the Sagamore of
Saco,
He lived a rogue, and died a knave, and
went to Hobomoko."
By some means or other, he obtained a
large estate. In this poem, I have taken
some liberties with him, not strictly war-
ranted by historical facts, although the con-
duct imputed to him is in keeping with his
general character. Over the last years of
his life lingers a deep obscurity. Even the
manner of his death is uncertain. He was
supposed to have been killed by the Indians ;
DUt this is doubted by the able and inde-
fatigable author of the History of Saco and
Biddeford. — Part I. p. 115.
Page 2. The leaping brook.
Foxwell's Brook flows from a marsh or
bog, called the " Heath," in Saco, contain-
ing thirteen hundred acres. On this brook,
and surrounded by wild and romantic
5cenery, is a beautiful waterfall, of more
than sixty feet.
Page 3. Hiacoomes.
Hiacoomes, the first Christian preacher
3n Martha's Vineyard; for a biography
of whom the reader is referred to In-
crease Mayhew's account of the Praying
Indians, 1726. The following is related of
him : " One Lord's day, after meeting,
^vhere Hiacoomes had been preaching,
there came in a Powwaw very angry, and
said, 'I know all the meeting Indians are
liars. You say you don't care for the Pow-
waws ' ; — then calling two or three of them
by name, he railed at them, and told them
they were deceived, for the Powwaws could
kill all the meeting Indians, if they set about
it. But Hiacoomes told him that he would
be in the midst of all the Powwaws in the
island, and they should do the utmost they
could against him ; and when they should
do their worst by their witchcraft to kill him,
he would without fear set himself against
them, by remembering Jehovah. He told
them also he did put all the Powwaws un-
der his heel. Such was the faith of this
good man. Nor were these Powwaws ever
able to do these Christian Indians any hurt,
though others were frequently hurt and killed
by them." — Mayhew, pp. 6, 7, c. i.
Page 5. A71 ache in her tooth.
"The tooth-ache," says Roger Williams
in his observations upon the language and
customs of the New England tribes, " is
the only paine which will force their stoute
hearts to cry." He aftervvards remarks
that even the Indian women never cry as he
has heard *' some of their men in this paine."
Page 6. Wuttamuttata.
Wuttamuttata, " Let us drink." Weekan,
" It is sweet." Vide Roger Williams's
Key to the Indian Language, " in that parte
of America called New England." London,
1643. P- 35-
Page 7. Wetuomanit.
Wetuo77ianit, — a house god, or demon.
"They — the Indians — have given me
the names of thirty-seven gods, which I
have, all which in their solemne Worships
they invocate ! " R. Williams's Briefe Ob-
servations of the Customs, Manners, Wor-
ships, &c., of the Natives, in Peace and
W^arre, in Life and Death : on all which is
added Spiritual Observations, General and
Particular, of Chiefe and Special use — upon
all occasions — to all the English inhabiting
these parts ; yet Pleasant and Profitable to
the view of all Mene. — p. no, c. 21.
Page 9. The Desert Isle.
Mt. Desert Island, the Bald Mountain
upon which overlooks Frenchman's and
Penobscot Bay. It was upon this island
that the Jesuits made their earliest settle-
ment.
Page 10. The Jesuifs Cross and Book.
Father Hennepin, a missionary among
the Iroquois, mentions that the Indians
believed him to be a conjurer, and that
tliey were particularly afraid of a bright
silver chalice which he had in his possession.
"The Indians," says P^re Jerome Lalla-
NOTES.
355
mant, " fear us as the greatest sorcerers on
earth."
Page lo. Bo777azeeu.
Bomazeen is spoken of by Penhallow, as
" the famous warrior and chieftain of Nor-
ridgewock." He was killed in the attack of
the English upon Norridgewock, in 1724.
Page II. The Jesuit,
Pfire Ralle, or Rasles, was one of the
most zealous and indefatigable of that
band of Jesuit missionaries who, at tlie
beginning of the seventeenth century, pene-
trated the forests of America, with the avowed
object of converting the heathen. The first
religious mission of the Jesuits, to the sav-
ages in North America, was in 161 1. The
zeal of the fathers for the conversion of the
Indians to the Catholic faith knew no
bounds. For this, they plunged into the
depths of the wilderness ; habituated them-
selves to air the hardships and privations
of the natives ; suffered cold, hunger, and
some of them death itself, by the extremest
tortures. P6re Brebeuf, after laboring in
the cause of his mission for twenty years,
together with his companion, Pere Lalla-
mant, was burned alive. To these might
be added the names of those Jesuits who
were put to death by the Iroquois, — Dan-
iel, Garnicr, Buteaux, La Riborerde, Gou-
pil, Constantin, and Liegeouis. " For bed,"
says Father Lallamant, in his Relatio7i de
ce qui s'est dciTzs le pays des Hurons, 1640, c.
3, " we have nothing but a miserable piece
of bark of a tree ; for nourishment, a hand-
ful or two of corn, either roasted or soaked
in water, which seldom satisfies our hunger ;
and after all, not venturing to perform even
the ceremonies of our religion, without be-
ing considered as sorcerers." Their suc-
cess among the natives, however, by no
means equalled their exertions. Pere Lalla-
mant says : " With respect to adult per-
sons, in good health, there is little apparent
success ; on the contrary, there have been
nothing but storms and whirlwinds from
that quarter."
Sebastian Ralle established himself, some
time about the year 1670, at Norridgewock,
where he continued more than forty years.
He was accused, and perhaps not without
justice, of exciting his praying Indians
against the English, whom he looked upon
as the enemies not only of his king, but also
of the Catholic religion. He was killed by
the English, in 1724, at the foot of the cross
which his own hands had planted. This
Indian church was broken up, and its
members either killed outright or dispersed.
In a letter written by Ralle to his nephew
he gives the following account of his church,
and his own labors: "All my converts re-
pair to the church regularly twice every
day ; first, very early in the morning, to at-
tend mass, and again in the evening, to
assist in the prayers at sunset. As it is
necessary to fix the imagination of savages,
whose attention is easily distracted, I have
composed prayers, calculated to inspire
them with just sentiments of the august
sacrifice of our altars : they chant, or at
least recite them aloud, during mass. Be-
sides preaching to them on Sundays and
saints' days, I seldom let a working-day
pass, without making a concise exhortation,
for the purpose of inspiring them with hor-
ror at those vices to which they are most
addicted, or to confirm them in the practise
of some particular virtue." Vide Lettres
Edijia7ites et Cur,, Vol. VI. p. 127.
Page 15. Pale priest!
The character of Ralle has probably
never been correctly delineated. By his
brethren of the Romish Church, he
has been nearly apotheosized. On the
other hand, our Puritan historians have
represented him as a demon in human
form. He was undoubtedly sincere in his
devotion to the interests of his church, and
not over-scrupulous as to the means of ad-
vancing those interests. " The French,"
says the author of the History of Saco and
Biddeford, " after the peace of 1713, secretly
promised to supply the Indians with arms
and ammunition, if they would renew hos-
tilities. Their principal agent was the cele-
brated Ralle, the French Jesuit." — p.
215.
Page 16. De Rouville,
Hertel de Rouville was an active and
unsparing enemy of the English. He was
the leader of the combined French and
Indian forces which destroyed Deerfield
and massacred its inhabitants, in 1703. He
356
NOTES.
was aftenvards killed in the attack upon
Haverhill. Tradition says that, on examin-
ing his dead body, his head and face were
found to be perfectly smooth, without the
slightest appearance of hair or beard.
Page 17. Cowesassf
Cowesass ? — tawkich wessaseen f Are
you afraid ? — why fear you ?
Page 20. The Bridal of Pennacook.
Winnepurkit, otherwise called George,
Sachem of Saugus, married a daughter
of Passaconaway, the great Pennacook
::hieftain, in 1662. The wedding took place
at Pennacook (now Concord, N. H.),
md the ceremonies closed with a great
feast. According to the usages of the
chiefs, Passaconaway ordered a select num-
Der of his men to accompany the newly-
married couple to the dwelling of the
busband, where in turn there was another
3^reat feast. Some time after, the wife of
Winnepurkit, expressing a desire to visit
ner father's house, was permitted to go, ac-
companied by a brave escort of her hus- ,
Dand's chief men. But when she wished to
return, her father sent a messenger to Sau-
jus, informing her husband, and asking
lim to come and take her away. He re-
:urned for an answer that he had escorted
lis wife to her father's house in a style that
Decame a chief, and that now if she wished
:o return, her father must send her back in
:he same way. This Passaconaway refused
:o do, and it is said that here terminated
:he connection of his daughter with the
Saugus chief. — Vide Morton s New Canaan.
Page 24. The Bashaba.
This was the name which the Indians
Df New England gave to two or three
Df their principal chiefs, to whom all
:heir inferior sagamores acknowledged al-
egiance. Passaconaway seems to have
Deen one of these chiefs. His residence
kvas at Pennacook. (Mass. Hist. Coll.,
Vol. HI. pp. 21, 22.) " He was regarded,"
says Hubbard, " as a great sorcerer, and
lis fame was widely spread. It was said of
lim that he could cause a green leaf to grow
n winter, trees to dance, water to burn, &c.
He was, undoubtedly, one of those shrewd
and powerful men whose achievements are
always regarded by a barbarous people as
the result of supernatural aid. The Indians
gave to such the names of Powahs or
Panisees."
" The Panisees are men of great courage
and wisdom, and to these the Devill appear-
eth more familiarly than to others." — Wins-
lows Relation.
Page 26. The household-god.
" The Indians," says Roger Williams,
" have a god whom they call Wetuomanit,
who presides over the household."
Page 28. The great stone vase.
There are rocks in the river at the Falls
of Amoskeag, in the cavities of which, tradi-
tion says, the Indians formerly stored and
concealed their corn.
Page 30. Aukeetainit.
The Spring God. — Vide Roger Will-
iams''s Key, Sec.
Page 33. Afat wonck kun7ia-monee !
" Mat wonck kunna-monee." We shall
■see thee or her no more. — Vide Roger
Williams^s Key to the Indian Language.
Page 33. O mighty Sowanna /
"The Great South West God."— Vide
Roger Williams's Observations, &c.
Page 34. The adventurer.
The celebrated Captain Smith, after re-
signing the government of the Colony in
Virginia, in his capacity of " Admiral of
New England," made a careful survey of
the coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod, in
the summer of 1614.
Page 34. " The Smile of Heaven."
Lake Winnipiseogee, — The Smile of the
Great Spirit, — the source of one of the
branches of the Merrimack.
Page 34. The sweetest name in all his
story.
Captain Smith gave to the promontory,
now called Cape Ann, the name of Traga-
bizanda, in memory of his young and
beautiful mistress of that name, who, while
he was a captive at Constantinople, like
Desdemona, " loved him for the dangers he
had passed."
Page 38. The Norsemen.
Some three or four years since, a frag-
ment of a statue, rudely chiselled from
dark gray stone, was found in the town of
Bradford, on the Merrimack. Its origin
must be left entirely to conjecture. The
NOTES.
357
fact that the ancient Northmen visited New
England, some centuries before the discov-
eries of Columbus, is now very generally
admitted.
Page 46. The proud Castilian.
De Soto, in the sixteenth century, pene-
trated into the wilds of the new world in
search of gold and the fountain of perpetual
youth.
Page 53. ToussAiNT L'Ouverture.
ToussAiNT L'Ouverture, the black
chieftain of Hayti, was a slave on the
plantation " de Libertas," belonging to M.
Bayou. When the rising of the negroes
took place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to
join them until he had aided M. Bayou
and his family to escape to Baltimore.
The white man had discovered in Tous-
saint many noble qualities, and had in-
structed him in some of the first branches
of education ; and the preservation of his
life was owing to the negro's gratitude for
this kindness.
In 1797, Toussaint L'Ouverture was ap-
pointed, by the French government, Gen-
eral-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo,
and, as such, signed the Convention with
General Maitland for the evacuation of the
island by the British. From this period,
until 1801, the island, under the government
of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, and pros-
perous. The miserable attempt of Napoleon
to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, al-
though it failed of its intended object, proved
fatal to the negro chieftain. Treacherously
seized by Leclerc, he was hurried on board
a vessel by night, and conveyed to France,
where he was confined in a cold subterra-
nean dungeon, at Besangon, where, in April,
1803, he died. The treatment of Toussaint
finds a parallel only in the murder of the
Duke D'Enghien. It was tiie remark of
Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West In-
dia Islands, since their first discovery by
Columbus, could not boast of a single name
which deserves comparison with that of^
Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Page 56. Dark Haytien !
The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the
beautiful sonnet of William Wordsworth,
addressed to Toussaint L'Ouverture, during
his confinement in France.
" Toussaint ! — thou most unhappy man of
men 1
Whether the whistling rustic tends his
plough
Within thy hearing, or thou liest now
Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den ;
O miserable chieftain ! — where and when
Wilt thou find patience ? — Yet, die not,
do thou
W^ear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow ;
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left be-
hind
Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth,
and skies, —
There 's not a breathing of the common
wind
That will forget thee : thou hast great
allies.
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable
mind."
Page 56. The Slave-ship.
The French ship Le Rodeur, with a
crew of twenty-two men, and with one
hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed
from Bonny, in Africa, April, 18 19. On ap-
proaching the line, a terrible malady broke
out, — an obstinate disease of the eyes, —
contagious, and altogether beyond the re-
sources of medicine. It was aggravated by
the scarcity of water among the slaves (only
half a wineglass per day being allowed to
an individual), and by the extreme impurity
of the air in which they breathed. By the
advice of the physician, they were brought
upon deck occasionally; but some of the
poor wretches, locking themselves in each
other's arms, leaped overboard, in the hope,
which so universally prevails among them,
of being swiftly transported to their own
homes in Africa. To check this, the cap-
tain ordered several who were stopped in
the attempt to be shot, or hanged, before
their confpanions. The disease extended
to the crew; and one after another were
smitten with it, until only one remained un-
affected. Yet even this dreadful condition
did not preclude calculation : to save the
expense of supporting slaves rendered un-
salable, and to obtain grounds for a claim
558
NOTES.
igainst the underwriters, thirty-six of the
iegroes, having becotne blind, were thrown
nto the sea and droimied!
In the midst of their dreadful fears lest
he solitary individual, whose sight remained
jnaffected, should also be seized with the
Tialady, a sail was discovered. It was the
Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease
lad been there; and, horrible to tell, all
he crew had become blind! Unable to
issist each other, the vessels parted. The
Spanish ship has never since been heard of.
Die Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the
2ist of June ; the only man who had escaped
he disease, and had thus been enabled to
jteer the slaver into port, caught it in three
lays after its arrival. — Speech of M. Ben-
jamin Constant, in the French Chamber of
Deputies, June 17, 1820.
Page 78. And he — the basest of the base.
The Northern author of the Congressional
rule against receiving petitions of the people
Dn the subject of Slavery.
Page 90. YORKTOWN.
Dr. Thacher, surgeon in Scammel's regi-
ment, in his description of the siege of
V'orktown, says: "The labor on the Vir-
ginia plantations is performed altogether
by a species of the human race cruelly
wrested from their native country, and
doomed to perpetual bondage, while their
masters are manfully contending for free-
dom and the natural rights of man. Such
is the inconsistency of human nature."
Eighteen hundred slaves were found at
Yorktown, after its surrender, and restored
to their masters. Well was it said by Dr.
Barnes, in his late work on Slavery : " No
slave was any nearer his freedom after the
surrender of Yorktown than when Patrick
Henry first taught the notes of liberty to
echo among the hills and vales of Virginia."
Page 98. Thi. Curse of the Charter-
breakers.
The rights and liberties affirmed by
Magna Charta were deemed of such
importance, in the thirteenth century, that
the Bishops, twice a year, with tapers burning,
and in their pontifical robes, pronounced,
in the presence of the king and the repre-
sentatives of the estates of England, the
greater excommunication against the in-
fringer of that instrument. The imposing
ceremony took place in the great Hall of
Westminster. A copy of the curse, as pro-
nounced in 1253, declares that, " by the
authority of Almighty God, and the blessed
Apostles and Martyrs, and all the saints in
heaven, all those who violate the English
liberties, and secretly or openly, by deed,
word, or counsel, do make statutes, or ob-
serve them being made, against said liberties,
are accursed and sequestered from the com-
pany of heaven and the sacraments of the
Holy Church."
William Penn, in his admirable politi-
cal pamphlet, " England's Present Interest
considered," alluding to the curse of the
Charter-breakers, says : " I am no Roman
Catholic, and little value their other curses ;
yet I declare I would not for the world incur
this curse, as every man deservedly doth,
who offers violence to the fundamental free-
dom thereby repeated and confirmed."
Page 117. The Vaudois Teacher.
" The manner in which the Waldenses
and heretics disseminated their princi-
ples among the Catholic gentry, was by
carrying with them a box of trinkets, or
articles of dress. Having entered the houses
of the gentry and disposed of some of their
goods, they cautiously intimated that they
had commodities far more valuable than
these, — inestimable jewels, which they
would show if they could be protected from
the clergy. They would then give their
purchasers a Bible or Testament; and
thereby many were deluded into heresy." —
R. Sac c ho.
Page 136; Chalkley Hall.
Chalkley Hall, near Frankford, Pa., the
residence of THOMAS CHALKLEY, an emi-
nent minister of the Friends' denomination.
He was one of the early settlers of the
Colony, and his Journal, which was pub-
lished in 1749, presents a quaint but
beautiful picture of a life of unostentatious
and simple goodness. He was the master
of a merchant vessel, and, in his visits to
the West Indies and Great Britain, omitted
no opportunity to labor for the highest
interests of his fellow-men. During a tem-
porary residence in Philadelphia, in the
summer of 1838, the quiet and beautiful
NOTES.
359
scenery around the ancient village of Frank-
ford frequently attracted me from the heat
and bustle of the city.
Page 140. The great Augiisthie.
August. Sililoq. cap. xxxi. " Interrogavi
Tcrram," &c.
Page 142. A7id beauty is its own excuse.
For the idea of this line, I am indebted
to Emerson, in his inimitable sonnet to the
Rhodora, —
"If eyes were made for seeing.
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."
Page 153. Barclay of Ury.
Among the earliest converts to the doc-
trines of Friends in Scotland was Barclay
of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier,
who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus,
in Germany. As a Quaker, he became
the object of persecution and abuse at the
hands of the magistrates and the populace.
None bore the indignities of the mob with
greater patience and nobleness of soul than
this once proud gentleman and soldier.
One of his friends, on an occasion of un-
common rudeness, lamented that he should
be treated so harshly in his old age who
had been so honored before. " I find
more satisfaction," said Barclay, " as well as
honor, in being thus insulted for my reli-
gious principles, than when, a few years ago,
it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed
the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the
road and conduct me to public entertain-
ment in their hall, and then escort me out
again, to gain my favor."
Page 167. Lucy Hooper.
Lucy Hooper died at Brooklyn, L. L, on
the ist of 8th mo., 1841, aged 24 years.
Page 168. ChanNING.
The last time I saw Dr. Channing was
in the summer of 1841, when, in company
with my English friend, Joseph Sturge,
so well known for his philanthropic labors
and liberal political opinions, I visited
him in his summer residence in Rhode
Island. In recalling the impressions of that
visit, it can scarcely be necessary to say, that
I have no reference to the peculiar religious
opinions of a man whose life, beautifully and
truly manifested above the atmosphere of
sect, is now the world's common legacy.
Page 171. SibviaJi s vine.
" O vine of Sibmah ! I will weep for thee
with the weeping of Jazerl" — Jeremiah
xlviii. 32.
Page 175. To MY Friend on the
Death of his Sister.
Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge,
of Birmingham, the President ol the Brit-
ish Complete Suffrage Association, died
in the 6th month, 1845. She was the col-
league, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate
of her brother in all his vast designs of
beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says
of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active
and passive virtues of the human character
more harmoniously and beautifully blended
than in this excellent woman."
Page 177. The Smile of God.
Winnipiseogee : " Smile of the Great
Spirit."
Page 180. The Legend of St. Mark.
This legend is the subject of a cele-
brated picture by Tintoretto, of which
Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch.
The slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd
of spectators, who look on, animated by all
the various emotions of sympathy, rage,
terror; a woman, in front, with a child in
her arms, has always been admired for the
life-like vivacity of her attitude and expres-
sion. The executioner holds up the broken
implements; St. Mark, with a headlong
movement, seems to rush down from heaven
in haste to save his worshipper. The dra-
matic grouping in this picture is wonder-
ful ; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth
and harmony, is, in Mr. Rogers's sketch,
finer than in the picture. — Mrs. Jamiesons
Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art, Vol. I.
p. 121.
Page 181. The Well of Loch Maree.
Pennant, in his " Voyage to the Heb-
rides," describes the holy well of Loch
Maree, the waters of which were supposed
to effect a miraculous cure of melancholy,
trouble, and insanity.
Page 183. To Pius IX.
The writer of these lines is no enemy
of Catholics. He has, on more than
one occasion, exposed himself to the
censures of his Protestant brethren, by his
strenuous endeavors to procure indemni-
36o
NOTES.
fication for the owners of the convent de-
stroyed near Boston. He defended the cause
of the Irish patriots long before it had be-
come popular in this country ; and he was
one of the first to urge the most liberal aid
to the suffering and starving population of
the Catholic island. The severity of his
language finds its ample apology in the
reluctant confession of one of the most
eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and
devoted Father Ventura.
Page 184. Elliott.
Ebenezer Elliott, the intelligence of
whose death has recently reached us, was,
to the artisans of England, what Burns
was to the peasantry of Scotland. His
" Corn-law Rhymes " contributed not a
little to that overwhelming tide of popular
opinion and feeling which resulted in the
repeal of the tax on bread. Well has the
eloquent author of " The Reforms and Re-
formers of Great Britain" said of him, " Not
corn-law repealers alone, but all Britons
who moisten their scanty bread with the
sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to
his inspiring lay, for the mighty bound
which the laboring mind of England has
taken in our day."
Page 186. The Christian Tourists.
The reader of the Biography of the late
William Allen, the philanthropic associate
of Clarkson and Romilly, cannot fail to
admire his simple and beautiful record
of a tour through Europe, in the years 1818
and 1819, in the company of his American
friend, Stephen Grellett.
Page 194. Thou 'mind'st me of a story
told,
In rare Bernardltis leaves of
gold.
The incident here referred to is related in
a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's
Etudes de la Nature.
" We arrived at the habitation of the Her-
mits a little before they sat down to their
table, and while they were still at church.
J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up
our devotions. The hermits were reciting
the Litanies of Providence, which are re-
markably beautiful. After we had addressed
our prayers to God, and the hermits were
proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said
to me, with his heart overflowing, ' At this
moment I experience what is said in the
gospel : Where two or three are gathered
together i?t my ?zai?ie, there am I in the midst
ofthein. There is here a feeling of peace
and happiness which penetrates the soul.'
I said, ' If Fenelon had lived, you would
have been a Catholic' He exclaimed, with
tears in his eyes, ' O, if Fenelon were alive,
I would struggle to get into his service, even
as a lackey! ' "
In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be
seen that I have somewhat antedated the
period of his old age. At that time he was
not probably more than fifty. In describing
him, I have by no means exaggerated his
own history of his mental condition at the
period of the story. In the fragmentary
Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus
speaks of himself: " The ingratitude of
those of whom I had deserved kindness,
unexpected family misfortunes, the total
loss of my small patrimony through enter-
prises solely undertaken for the benefit of
my country, the debts under which I lay
oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes, —
these combined calamities made dreadful
inroads upon my health and reason ... I
found it impossible to continue in a room
where there was company, especially if the
doors were shut. I could not even cross
an alley in a public garden, if several per-
sons had got together in it. When alone,
my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise
at ease in places where I saw children only.
At the sight of any one walking up to the
place where I was, I felt my whole frame
agitated, and retired. I often said to my-
self, ' My sole study has been to merit well
of mankind ; why do I fear them ? ' "
He attributes his improved health of mind
and body to the counsels of his friend, J. J.
Rousseau. " I renounced," says he, " my
books. I threw my eyes upon the works of
nature, which spake to all my senses a lan-
guage which neither time nor nations have
it in their power to alter. Thenceforth my
histories and my journals were the herbage
of the fields and meadows. My thoughts
did not go forth painfully after them, as
in the case of human systems; but their
thoughts, under a thousand engaging forms,
NOTES.
361
quietly sought me. In these I studied, with-
out effort, the laws of that Universal Wisdom
which had surrounded me from the cradle,
but on which heretofore I had bestowed
little attention."
Speaking of Rousseau, he says : " I de-
rived inexpressible satisfaction from his
society. What I prized still more than his
genius, was his probity. He was one of
the few literary characters, tried in the fur-
nace of affliction, to whom you could, with
perfect security, confide your most secret
thoughts. . . . Even when he deviated, and
became the victim of himself or of others,
he could forget his own misery in devotion
to the welfare of mankind. He was uni-
formly the advocate of the miserable. There
might be inscribed on his tomb these affect-
ing words from that Book of which he car-
ried always about him some select passages,
during the last years of his life : His sins,
which are many, are forgiven, for he loved
much.''
Page 195. Like that the gray-haired sea-
king passed.
Dr. Hooker, who accompanied Sir James
Ross in his expedition of 1841, thus de-
scribes the appearance of that unknown land
of frost and fire which was seen in latitude
Tj"^ south, — a stupendous chain of moun-
tains, the whole mass of which, from its
highest point to the ocean, was covered
with everlasting snow and ice : —
"The water and the sky were both as
blue, or rather more intensely blue, than I
have ever seen them in the tropics, and all
the coast was one mass of dazzlingly beauti-
ful peaks of snow, which, when the sun ap-
proached the horizon, reflected the most
brilliant tints of golden yellow and scarlet;
and then, to see the dark cloud of smoke,
tinged with flame, rising from the volcano
in a perfect unbroken column, one side jet-
black, the other giving back the colors of
the sun, sometimes turning off at a right
angle by some current of wind, and stretch-
ing many miles to leeward ! This was a sight
so surpassing everything that can be imag-
ined, and so heightened by the consciousness
that we had penetrated, under the guidance
of our commander, into regions far beyond
what was ever deemed practicable, that it
caused a feeling of awe to steal over us at
the consideration of our own comparative
insignificance and helplessness, and at the
same time an indescribable feeling of the
greatness of the Creator in the works of his
hand."
Page 203. . . . The first great triumph
won
In Freedom's name.
The election of Charles Sumner to the
U.S. Senate " followed hard upon " the ren-
dition of the fugitive Sims by the U.S. offi-
cials and the armed police of Boston.
Page 207. Derne.
The storming of the city of Derne, in
1805, by General Eaton, at the head of nine
Americans, forty Greeks, and a motley array
of Turks and Arabs, was one of those feats
of hardihood and daring which have in all
ages attracted the admiration of the multi-
tude. The higher and holier heroism of
Christian self-denial and sacrifice, in the
humble walks of private duty, is seldom so
well appreciated.
Page 211. To Fredrika Bremer.
It is proper to say that these lines are the
joint impromptu of my sister and myself.
They are inserted here as an expression
of our admiration of the gifted stranger
whom we have since learned to love as a
friend.
Page 215. Kathlekn.
This ballad was originally published in a
prose work of the author's, as the song of a
wandering Milesian schoolmaster.
In the seventeenth century, slavery in the
New World was by no means confined to
the natives of Africa. Political offenders
and criminals were transported by the Brit-
ish government to the plantations of Barba-
does and Virginia, where they were sold
like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of
free and innocent white persons was prac-
tised to a considerable extent in the seaports
of the United Kingdom.
Page 218. Kossuth.
It can scarcely be necessary to say that
there are elements in the character and
passages in the history of the great Hun-
garian statesman and orator, which neces-
sarily command the admiration of those,
even, who believe that no political revolu-
362
NOTES.
tion was ever worth the price of human
blood.
Page 220. Homilies from Oldbug
hear.
Dr. W , author of "The Puritan,"
under the name of Jonathan Oldbug.
Page 236. William Forster.
Wilham Forster, of Norwich, England,
died in East Tennessee, in the ist month,
1854, while engaged in presenting to the
governors of the States of this Uliion the
address of his religious society on the evils
of slavery. He was the relative and co-
adjutor of the Buxtons, Gurneys, an4
Frys ; and his whole life, extending almost
to threescore and ten years, was a pure and
beautiful example of Christian benevolence.
He had travelled over Europe, and visited
most of its sovereigns, to plead against the
slave-trade and slavery; and had twice
before made visits to this country, under
impressions of religious duty.
Page 237. Rantoul.
No more fitting inscription could be
placed on the tombstone of Robert Rantoul
than this: "He died at his post in Con-
gress, and his last words were a protest in
the name of Democracy against the Fugi-
tive-Slave Law."
Page 252. Songs of Slaves in the
Desert.
" Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, loth March,
1846. — This evening the female slaves
were unusually excited in singing, and I
had the curiosity to ask my negro ser-
vant. Said, what they were singing about.
As many of them were natives of his own
country, he had no difficulty in translating
the Mandara or Bornou language. I had
often asked the Moors to translate their
songs for me, but got no satisfactory account
from them. Said at first said, ' O, they sing
of Rubee' (God). ' What do you mean ? '
I replied impatiently. ' O, don't you know? '
he continued, ' they asked God to give them
•their Atka' (certificate of freedom). I
inquired, ' Is that all ? ' Said : ' No ; they
say, " Where are we going ? The world is
large. O God! Where are we going? O
God! " ' I inquired, ' What else ? ' Said :
' They remember their country, Bornou, and
say, " Bornou was a pleasant country, full
of all good things ; but this is a bad country,
a?id we are miserable !" ' ' Do they say
anything else ? ' Said : ' No ; they repeat
these words over and over again, and add,
"O God! give us our Atka, and let us re-
turn again to our dear home" '
" I am not surprised I got little satisfac-
tion when I asked the Moors about the
songs of their slaves. Who will say that
the above words are not a very appro-
priate song ? What could have been more
congenially adapted to their then woful con-
dition ? It is not to be wondered at that
these poor bondwomen cheer up their
hearts, in their long, lonely, and painful
wanderings over the desert, with words and
sentiments like these ; but I have often ob-
served that their fatigue and sufferings were
too great for them to strike up this melan-
choly dirge, and many days their plaintive
strains never broke over the silence of the
desert." — Richardson's Journal.
Page 253. The New Exodus.
One of the latest and most interesting
items of Eastern news is the statement
that Slavery has been formally and totally
abolished in Egypt.
Page 269. The Conquest of Fin-
land.
A letter from England, in the Friends'
Review, says: "Joseph Sturge, with a
companion, Thomas Harvey, has been
visiting the shores of Finland, to ascertain
the amount of mischief and loss to poor
and peaceable sufferers, occasioned by t"he
gunboats of the Allied squadrons in the
late war, with a view to obtaining relief for
them."
Page 285. Telling the Bees.
A remarkable custom, brought from the
Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural
districts of New England. On the death
of a member of the family, the bees were
at once informed of the event, and their
hives dressed in mourning. This ceremon-
ial was supposed to be necessary to prevent
the swarms from leaving their hives and
seeking a new home.
Page 297. O Beauty, old yet ever
new !
" Too late I loved Thee, O Beauty of
ancient days, yet ever new ! And lo ! Thou
NOTES.
d 1 abroad searching for thee,
th me, but I was not with
/. Soliloq., Book X.
)des of everlasting Day.
that there was an Ocean of
Death : but an infinite Ocean
d Love flowed over the Ocean of
And in that I saw the infinite
of God." — George Fox's Journal.
Page 306. Le Marais
The massacre of unarmed
ing men, in Southern Kans
near the Marais du Cygne of
voyageurs.
Page 321. The Quaker Alumni.
Read at the Friends* School Anni-
versary, Providence, R. I., 6th mo.,
i860.
362 /
tion was ever wo
blood. /o
Page 220 - / "'
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